Watercolor Technique - Washes

Today begins a series of posts on watercolor techniques.  When I first started painting I began with watercolors.  At the time I did not know it was one of the most challenging mediums, more so than oil painting.  I worked in watercolor for awhile, but eventually gave up and switched to oil.  Yet I still long to practice and improve in watercolor, hence this series of posts.  I hope you find them interesting.  According to Wikipedia, "In watercolors, a wash is the application of diluted paint in a manner that disguises or effaces individual brush strokes to produce a unified area of color. There are many techniques to produce an acceptable wash, but the student method is to tilt the paper surface (usually after fixing it to a rigid flat support) so that the top of the wash area is higher than the bottom, then to apply the paint in a series of even, horizontal brush strokes in a downward sequence, each stroke just overlapping the stroke above to pull downward the excess paint or water (the "bead"), and finally wicking up the excess paint from the last stroke using a paper towel or the tip of a brush."  Enjoy!