Playing with ( water) colours

 I bought a watercolour set a few weeks ago and only got around to playing with it today. I want to try sketching the outline for a drawing, then painting a background wash before using my markers to colour the drawing. I had a go drawing an autumn leaf today, just to try out the paints. 

I drew around a leaf, then divided it in half. I painted one half, and used markers for the other half. 

I hadn’t tried the paints at all before, what I should have done was do a swatch test first. So I did that afterwards!

There are 25 water colours, plus a tube of white. I tried mixing a couple of colours on my swatch page, using the pale/ flesh pink to lighten the dark pink & the purple. I think now I have the swatch page I will try some more painting.