I finally knuckled down and took a full watercolor tutorial from Anna Mason. She’s a famous watercolor artist and teacher for botanical watercolor. What I learned is that there is no shortcut to this kind of art. It was a very slow process of very watery blends of color one layer over another over another. There were subtle changes in tone and hue, but the main lesson was patience!
None of us really like to practice patience, but most of God’s greatest work in our lives takes time. It is done one almost transparent change at a time over and over and over until the beauty of His life can be seen in our human frame. Let’s not try to force His hand. We’ll only mess it up.