Watercolor: If at First You Don't Succeed Try Try Again

These two watercolors ( Heckscher Marsh 1 (at bottom) & 2 (at top) ) show the beginning of a process of improvement I am working on to bring more looseness to my work. I used a two inch brush for the first one and felt that it was just a bit too out of control so I went back to a 1 " nylon to "chisel" large blocks of wet washes into the painting. I feel the second one gave me a better result.
Every serious artist and anyone attempting to improve their art work should set clear goals for each painting that they are about to do. In watercolors this seems particularly important, because the fast nature of the medium and the immediacy mean that a painting can quickly get away from you. I try to verbalize the features I want to see in my painting before I start out, such as: good composition, purity or boldness of color, luminosity, chiseled strokes, strong compliments clearly defined against each other, use of glazes or resists etc . Stating the qualities that I would like to see the piece have that previous pieces didn't have, helps to maintain a clear target for consistency sake. Then even if I miss all the features, I know exactly what I have missed and I can try again, and again if necessary till I get it right. When I was in Japan, I studied Japanese philosophy as it pertains to art. The subject itself is what westerners tend to focus on at first. From the outset, the oriental looks at the painting as a chance to refine one's discipline and sense of mastery and control of the medium and ones impulses. The painting becomes sublimated to that end. So if you need to paint a subject many times to "get it right" so be it. They sometimes paint the same character, or theme hundreds of times, but by then obviously they will master it. Inevitably you must come to face yourself in that process. You will realize that if you keep doing a thing the same way again and again, you can expect the same results. Suddenly you will have an epiphany and breakthrough to the other side, when you tire of your neurotic rituals and habits, and that will eventually give you the results you desire. Remember:
No masterpiece was ever painted by a lazy artist-Salvador Dali