My entry into “Explorations In Watermedia” is about painting a watercolor with a Notan or value sketch as an underpainting to see if this was possible with a transparent medium. In opaque mediums like oil, pastel or gouache, an underpainting is often used to establish the values. So I wondered if this would be possible to do with the traditional process of watercolor painting. I started by using Payne’s Gray to paint basically a value sketch as the first layer in this painting of Arizona reservation horses walking across a highway. I let that layer dry and then went back in with a tri-color paint scheme as the second layer, then finished the painting in the typical watercolor process, with one exception: since I had established the values with the underpainting, I only needed to focus on the other two components of the “Big Three of Color”--the chroma (bright or dull contrasts) and the hue (warm & cool contrasts). This exercise was an interesting challenge; first, because I had to determine the hue that was best to use as an underpainting. I also explored how this first hue/value layer would affect the three colors that I chose to place on top in the second layer. I liked having the values established at the start of the painting process. I will definitely use this approach more and maybe even expand on this exploratory idea!