Watercolors- Dandelions

I saw this image of dandelions painted by Konstantin Sterkov on his blog Art of Watercolor (a great read, that I browsed for months, going farther and farther back in time-- he interviews lots of great watercolor artists and shares samples of a lot of different artists.... great reading!).

He did a very good job of keeping the edges wet when we wanted them wet (on the right) and dry where he wanted them dry (upper left).  He also had a nice variety of values, as the stems of the dandelions read clearly in his image. 

These are my attempts at exploring just how he did what he did.  I actually prefer the first of my two attempts (the one on the right), but like many of my paintings, I wish I had the time/ inclination to try it again, as I think I could do better, having doe it twice already!  Only after the fact did I recognize how much yellow/green he put into the lower half-- which serves as a nice contrast to the darker blues up top.

I've been trying to figure out just how he did what he did.  First I thought he was doing a wet into wet technique for some of the softer dandelions on the bottom, but how I wonder if he just diluted his mix, and painted those areas wet on dry.  The white of his dandelions have a darker value than the "pure white" of mine, which use the paper.