Water Color and Working on Values

I’ve been painting with water colors the last few times I’ve been going out to paint. In my previous post, “The Orange Blog Problem”, I mentioned I have issues with organizing my values. With oil paint, I can easily paint over an area or value that is not working in my painting- but, with water color, I can’t just paint over anything I want. Oil paint can be scraped off with a palette knife or can be made to dry faster by adding a quick-dry medium to it, or thinning it down with turpentine or odor less mineral spirits. ALSO, with oil paint, I can paint from dark to light. With watercolor, I can’t do those things. I have to rely on the white of the paper to create my value structure when I’m painting with water color. I had a couple really good painting sessions the last few weeks that are forcing me to think before I put down any color on my paper. I’ll be painting with water colors for a while and then see how that affects my oil painting. I want to see how it helps me with structuring my values and simplifying what I am looking at in the landscape when I go out and paint.