I really appreciate this advice! This approach is really fun and is helping me loosen up the way I choose and apply the paint. I wish I would have been introduced to watercolors like this when I first started learning this medium.

I also dont mind sharing a few thoughts: Are you new to creativity or experienced? - I'd say I am experienced. I like the broad definition of creativity where you figure out new ideas, or figure out novel ways of applying old ideas. I've been sketching on and off for most of my life, but more for personal enjoyment than for employment. Some of the jobs I have held encouraged creative problem solving and troubleshooting, so even though I created non-visual things, they were still unique works of art. I also really enjoy discovering how things work, from mechanical to process-oriented, and finding nice surprises when I can apply a seemingly unrelated concept to solve a problem in a separate domain. Do you have an art background? - I played jazz in high school (improvisation) and studied music performance in college (orchestra, more exact and precise expression) in addition to my drawing hobby. I also decided to explore watercolor painting a couple of years ago, so I sketch from life and photos whenever I get a free afternoon. Where do you want to be more creative? I'd like to be more creative in how I communicate my ideas to other people. Sometimes I think I sound like a crazy person trying to jam a weird analogy into a conversation to try and help people understand my off-the-wall ideas. I manage a team of data analysts and would like to find ways to inspire their curiosity beyond the numbers in front of them. I think asking good questions is an art form, just as much as crafting experiments that will probably fail but will yield some new clues on what to try next.

I'm really enjoying these special guest speakers/sessions. It is so helpful hearing how other artists think and how they have honed their process over time.

When you were talking about empathy, it made me think of the movie Slumdog Millionaire. There are some plants and payoffs that are great on that show.

I enjoyed drawing this camel. I lightly sketched the basic inside shapes first, then used those as landmarks to connect my C, S, and I lines. I tried to use the minimum number of lines necessary to convey the nose and mouth, but I think I might have got caught up in too many details. What do you think about the detail level on the face?

I was actually pretty surprise how nice these looked in the end, considering how much my brain was like "I can't tell what you're trying to make here..." for most of the process. First image was my original attempt, and the second was done while following along with the demo. Definitely made me realize I could have gotten a lot more value "punch" out of the first drawing if I had used more than one pencil!

Overall, it needs more practice.

I liked practicing finding the values from colors and having to make decisions on only 5 total values.