Clotheslines and Abstract with Grays

Often I feel my pieces lack color unity, and are garish. It might be because I have so little gray gluing everything together. I get carried away.

Here's a watercolor I think of as "Clotheslines." This began as an abstract and then the clotheslines and clothes emerged. Family, looking at this piece, don't get that, though - so it doesn't really work. And I'm not sure I like it, colors or composition. It has no focus - too much is going on.

I read about ways to mix grays using different pairs or trios of transparent colors. So I decided to experiment with an abstract. This is the result. While I like some of what's going on here, and I learned some things I will apply in other works, I'm not sure this works, either. It also lacks focus.

So I don't think of these as finished pieces, and I will probably paint over them in some way and push them further. That's how Cats and Koi emerged.