Digital paint experiments

I had thought of starting with some experiments on digital painting to work on the level of colors from light and darker tone.

I was thinking of how to make a good sand texture, going for a few earthly color so long as they are brownish and tried different types of brush tools to work on the texture. I may need to use one color as the sands don't have many and work more on the shading. however, I do like a little how it turns out with the texture and how it looks, would need to figure out which brush tool to use for this sort of pattern to get it as good as I can get.

Using the same idea but more on the smoother colors to make a circular shape, making the center more lighter with the darker colors around it. I added the lighter colors around the 'edges' to make it look like an object. I would have to look into art tutorials to take notes and examples of how it can be done.