^ The dramatic lighting in this set up helped me get a really good grip on highlights and values when using watercolors. 

^ This is an observational piece I did using watercolor to better my understanding of color and values

^ A Still life in acrylics, done in 3 hours

^ A collection of various watercolor and soft pastel studies to learn values and blending.

^ On the left is a live still life I did with water colors. It took me 3 hours.  On the left is a still life done with pencil shading.