I have a rocky relationship with watercolor. It is one of the first mediums I used, but it is also the one I am farthest from mastering. I cannot just paint over my mistakes like I do in acrylic. Another problem I face with watercolor is anticipating how the water and paint will behave. Then there is the waiting for washes to dry before moving on. For all of the patience I have for knotwork, I am not a patient painter. I do not like to stop and break from the creative trance.
Having said all of that, I love the luminous feel of watercolor. I know I can achieve some of that effect with acrylic, but is is not wholly the same. So I have been playing with watercolors again. I do it while I paint with my son. The compositions are simple and the subject is always chosen by my son. He has been on a tree kick. I use different papers to see how water reacts differently on each surface. One of my goals is to avoid muddying the colors. I still have a lot to learn.
Here are a couple of my recent attempts.
Fire Oak Studio 
Watercolors are indeed challenging! I have seen some really nice work done in acrylics in which the layers are used very thinly so they achieve a similar transparency to WC, have you tried?
I’ve tried, though none of my attempts have come close to watercolor transparency.