Trio of Pears - Watercolor

I'm taking another stab at learning to watercolor paint by taking a class offered through our city parks and recreation department.  And of course, the first lesson in the class is the one that is the hardest for me:  value!  Value refers to the relative darkness and lightness of a color.  It's those contrasts that give an image shape and which create depth and distance.  My problem is keeping the light values.

After a practice exercise in atmospheric perspective (which I don't think I did very well), we had a little over an hour to paint whatever we wanted based on a photo or sketch of our choice.  I wanted to keep it simple so I had found a photograph online of three pairs against a white background.  And here's my rendering of said pears.

I lost some of the highlights on the two pears on the left, but overall I'm pretty pleased with this first painting.  At least you could tell they were pears, right?

Have a fabulous day!