Feeling is the Point

Capture The Feeling
In both of the watercolors here you see the background is an important player in the "atmosphere" or mood of the piece.  Feeling is a big part of any successful picture.  Getting the background right and utilizing the wet into wet techniques accurately are the real challenge in the opportunity presented by this challenge.  Master this technique and you will go a long way to achieving your choice and any variety of moods in future work.  This could work with stormy days, moonlit nights etc.
In the "Olympic Seashore Fantasy" I used the masking fluid to mask off parts of the driftwood drawing, but what is unique here is that I left bits of the lines in the wood exposed when applying the mask so the background wash colorized ( naturally uneven, good!) the lines in a random way that is harder to achieve painting detail with a brush in the classic way.

Above: "Olympic Seashore Fantasy"- 14" X 20" Watercolor on Arches Watercolor paper.  
In the background of the top piece I was going for a cooler feel, as in the great northwest, and in the bottom piece a more tropical warm look in the mist using more pink mixed with yellow to make a warm orange. 


Above: "Florida Riverbank Fantasy"- 14" X 20" Watercolor on Arches Watercolor paper.  
Remember with reflections, the cosmic principle applies, "as above so below"! Let the watercolor do the heavy lifting using the "wicking" techniques I rail on about salt and scraping effects.

Homework:  George Inness was the master of oil paintings with great atmospheric effect.  Explore in Google his work for ideas, then try something like it in watercolor, acrylic or oils!