Sea Shell ink and watercolor 15 x 22 inches

I have finished this watercolor painting with much struggle with the dark shadow areas.  I painted the shadow areas between the sea shells with layers of watercolor in a wet in wet technique and found that it was to dark and contrasty comparing to the brightness of the shells.  I wanted to change that to give a feeling of sand in the background.  For that I tried to flick white gauche paint onto the dark background covering the shells.  After I have done that, the contrast is gone but the painting does not have a three dimensional feeling to it.  The background is now too light and competes with the sea shell.  I then try to paint over the white gauche with watercolor and that resulted in a mess of grayish mud like color.  I had the painting up for a few days trying to find ways to repair the mistake.  Then I apply  permanent black ink that I use for ink transfer technique to the very dark shadow areas and leave some areas a lighter tone.  I found this works well for the painting and this is what I have done to the rest of the shadow areas.