Watercolour failures

I did two more postcard-sized paintings last night. Both were exercises from a Frank Clarke book (in fact I think I've done one of them before, except bigger). I really don't like either of them. The trees look stupid and cartoonish. But all I wasted was two bits of watercolour paper and a bit of paint and a few hours of time, and it's all practice, isn't it?

I'm going to sit down with my Terry Harrison book tonight. He paints nice, more realistic trees. I'm just going to paint lots and lots of trees till they start to actually look like trees and not brown crayons with bits sticking out.

Oh and I'm still having major trouble scanning. The sky of the poppies picture is actually a weak ultramarine, but it looks almost white here. Hmmmm. I need to figure this out.