Watercolor fun on vacation

I try to work thru a lesson or so while on vacation, usually watercolor and working from a book, or magazine. Today I stayed by the pool working from Gordon Mackensies book on watercolor essentials. ( great book by the way)

I wanted to learn how he paints "looking thru water" a trick that will com in handy for the Water Lily Girls.

It's all in the book, but what you do is paint a blue background and then paint the squiggly green lines. The blue ends up as being the reflective part of the water, and the green is the part you can see thru. Then you add the rocks, only showing thru the green parts. This was NOT easy for me, drawing rocks in only part of the painted areas. I was having spacial confusion. The way my mind works, I wanted to paint rocks, then paint blue water, then green see thru bits. I even tried doing it that way to show myself how that wouldn't work.

Here are two trials. I thing the first one looks like potatoes floating on water, much more work there. The second one holds promise I think.

I am getting some beach time in, but it's so much fun to paint and try to follow a lesson. Lucky me, so many fun things to do and so little time to do them in!