This watercolour emerged as a result of wishing to paint an atmospheric picture with a dark toned textured foreground. I washed the whole paper with a light tone of indigo and ivory black, running in a lot of clean water where I wanted the lighter passages. Once this was dry I put in the mountains and the buildings and then used masking fluid to mask the creek. When that had dried I painted in the dark tones of the muddy areas and again waited for everything to dry. Covering the upper part of the paper I spattered masking fluid over the foreground and then painted the mid tones. After removing the masking fluid I finished the painting off with the foreground rocks and posts, the people and the boats.