I recently heard an artist say that every watercolor goes through an ugly stage. My oh my but is THAT ever true! For me, that seems to happen after the first couple of layers... when everything is still too light to be substantial, and the values and saturation are still kind of flat. It almost makes me want to stop-- it's THAT hideous. But I will keep pressing on and see what happens. The drying time between layers also makes me want to just put this thing to bed. Not to mention the stupid cast shadow that I added in this one below... ugh. Just hoping I can fix that somehow.

If this thing turns out to be worth saving, I'll post the finished product here!