Hu I wanted to answer your question because I had a problem the same as yours when I first started to use water colour.
You have everything you need and some! when I do watercolour I actually remove my page from the pad (if its not a block) and fill a basin with water then take my sheet and pull it gently through the water so that the back and front are equally wet. So it’s not surface water which dries out quite quickly but the paper is wet on both sides. May not sound much but I found it very important.
Then you need to consider are you doing wet on wet or wet on dry?
My class teacher told me not to worry about making pictures to start but to understand how the paint works. It was the best advice I had because I had to make sure that my page was prepared (as above) and then using a large mop brush full of water strun it over the page where I wanted paint to go. Then dip brush tip in my colour again making surethe colours have been wetted and just touchj the brush to the paper and watch it bloom.
So really befire anything it is important to learn how your paint works and different paints can work differently.
For free lessons/advice look up Lindsay Weirich on YouTube the frugal crafter she has some lessons.
Or if you don’t mind paying a little The Artist Network have free tutorials, video lessons to stream or buy and it is very economical. I started with a course
Sorry the link above is for a lesson I was taking in watercolours but it would be a good experience for you. You can join and then you get a lot a free stuff. But I don’t do that because I find a lot of the info is irrelevant to me. So I usually stream classes and this was a set of 9 just gorgous lessons the link above is for lesson 2. To get the lessons it is $16,99 and you can access any time for ever. you can’t download a streaming lesson but you can watch on line as often as you want. Or you can look through and buy a class or look at free lessons.
I sincerely wish you well and would love to see your paintings. I think if you just took a class at a time in the series I sent you will be amazed how much you grow.
Don’t waste your money on books, you need to see the cause and effect. If you can afford a little bit more Jean Haines is the best teacher ever.
Good luck x
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