I got asked to do something to hang on a wall for an exhibition in Melbourne.So I knew I'd tackle a water colour. It was just a question of what to do. So I went to my handy dandy sketch-book & picked an image out of that. I found a really good quality water colour pad in a op-shop for $3! So first it was a process of stretching the paper. That means taping to a back board & sponging the paper with a damp sponge.It buckles at 1st, but then flattens out after drying. This mean when your using large amounts of water & water colour paint it now wont buckle up.
So then we sketch roughly !away
Then tighten & remove your construction lines lines.
With water colour I tend to pick a light source.Then blob paint where I think the shadows will be.
Then add a lot of water to unpainted areas of the page to drag the water colour out of an painted area to the unpainted areas.So then colour gets less intense away from the paint source.