Watercolor: the challenge of too much pigment poorly applied

Presently, I am painting a three large watercolor paintings. I thought it might be interesting to illustrate with this one what it means to have  a watercolor be "overpainted" or "dull"or "dead" in color. These ladies are sitting on a stone bench. I chose granulating, sedimentary colors and applied them as a large mix onto prewet paper. After it dried, I knew that the colors I chose would work, but this painting will be recycled into the back of smaller paintings in the future. I lost the "white" of the paper

Here is the painting started over again. The same colors have been used but they are not premixed. Instead they are dropped onto prewet paper individually and floated to mix. This will be repeated once more to adjust the value after more of the painting is completed. I can only add one more layer of these colors though, or I will return to the lifeless thick wall above.





Artist note: The colors used included yellow ochre, cerulean blue, sepia, permanent rose and rose madder. The darker browns had some ultramarine dropped in as well.