Deeper?

1st year painting today, continue with our onion/pepper still life. The pencil drawing I did at the beginning I spent a lot of time on, longer than I would normally with a simple still life. But I've been trying to take it into heart the whole idea of 'look deeper' that I keep hearing in the nihon-ga department. Today was about color, we had done the shadows with sumi-e and a put on a base-color of ochre. Sensei had some difficulty explaining things, obviously, so he demonstrated a lot of the technique. But still, I kept looking and working, and he'd come along and say just to put a whole 'nother coat on. I'm still trying to understand whats possible using these japanese paints, what colors I can use with which other colors, if I can layer dark on light and light on dark and everything in between, to make it look right. I keep thinking I have a grasp on it, then one of my Sensei will come along and demonstrate something that completely voids my thinking. Theres a formula, but the language makes it hard to figure out. I was told japanese paints are not watercolors, which I understand why it was said, so I guess there's that!

I was asked if students work with paints like these, where you combine the pigment and the glue. Nope. Tempera painting at it's finest.