Beginning watercolor homework 2/15/12 Seeing in layers

Here are a couple of images that suggest a series of layers as a means of translating them into watercolor.

Look them over with an eye toward which layers carry the narrative content and the illusions of light, space, and substance. Squinting helps.

Just in terms of total space, the middle values dominate this scene. Are they also responsible for the content?

Here there is more dark than middle value. Would the darks alone tell the story?

If you were making a painting of one of these in layers that progress from light to dark, at which stage you would have to start being careful. 

Many of you brought home the images you were working on in class. Using those or one of the above, make a simple version of the scene by blocking in the lights, laying the middles over them, and, finally, adding the darks. Try limiting your palette to just three colors - one red, one yellow, and one blue, and make all your colors by combining the primaries you have chosen

Have fun