Direct Watercolour challenge 2025 - 23 and 24

23 Now, what with me being off work with a broken shoulder, it being the weekend shouldn’t make any great difference. However I always feel that I should be more productive during the challenge at the weekends, so on Saturday 21^st I set out to make another 2 pictures. Since I was already 2 ahead of schedule then this would put me 3 ahead. The first one shows London’s Crystal Palace just after the disastrous fire in 1936. The Crystal Palace was originally built in Hyde Park in London to house the 1851 Great Exhibition. After the exhibition the building was bought by a group of businessmen and transported to Sydenham in South London where it was rebuilt as part of a large scale Victorian tourist attraction. In 1936 a devastating fire consumed the building. What was left after the fire was irreparable and demolition followed, When I invent my time machine the first visit will be to the medieval London Bridge and the second will be to the Crystal Palace.

24  Cards on the table, this is not an original work. It’s a copy of a painting of Budapest I found on the internet. I found it on Reddit, but all I could find out about the artist was the artist’s username, Matway. Sometimes you can learn a lot from trying to reproduce another artist’s work and I think that this was one of those times. Now, when I can produce something like this without having to copy anyone else’s, then I’ll know I’m getting somewhere.

Direct Watercolour Challenge 2025 22 Port Talbot Dock Hotel

 

 was so happy with my bison painting that I decided to start another painting on the evening of the same day – Thursday 19^th June. I didn’t start until much later than I normally would because it wasn’t until later in the day that my new pad of watercolour paper was delivered. So, this building is the Dock Hotel in Port Talbot. After marrying a local girl I moved to Port Talbot from London in 1986. Port Talbot, an important industrial town, did have many fine Victorian and Edwardian buildings but a lot of them were swept away I a large scale redevelopment of the centre of tow in the early 1970s. I did see this building before it was demolished in 1989 – a crying shame in my opinion. 

Direct Watercolour challenge 2025 - painting 21

 

On the previous painting – the Betjeman statue – I used my last piece of proper watercolour paper. I ordered a new pad from Amazon, but it had not arrived by the time I wanted to start, so I took a gamble. I used a piece of ordinary 150 gsm sketching paper. It worked out better than I  hoped, for I know that the colours do look a bit muted on this sort of paper. The North American bison is a really interesting animal. Extensive hunting and slaughter of the bison population of the USA meant that a population numbering tens of millions in 1800 had dwindled to under 1100 by 1890. Since then efforts of conservationists have been outstandingly successful. There are estimated 150,000 bison today and they are no longer on the endangered list.

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge - 17 - 20

The last time I posted I was 2 paintings ahead of schedule. I  have painted every day since, but the 17^th painting took so long that I lost a day. Which I made back up by doing two the next day. Here they are

17  The Caffe Tramvaj in Wenceslas Square in Prague. I visited Prague in 2017 and this café is where I enjoyed a cappuccino. It’s one of my favourite cafes anywhere. Is it because the coffee is incredibly good, or very cheap, or because it has the most wonderful staff ? That would be no, no and no. But it’s an old tram! I read in the Autumn of 2024 that it had been shut down for not having a permit. It’s a shame. I am proud of this one – it took absolutely hours to complete.

18 British Grand Prix. Back in 2022 during the challenge month I managed to make a couple of pictures which were actually relatively close to what I saw in my head while I was making them, and one was of a 1950s formula 1 grand prix car . I was proud of it and did sell it. So come 2023 I  did another Grand Prix picture but this one was rubbish. Well, things have been going so well with my 2025 pictures that I decided to bite the bullet and have another go.

19  Okay, so, by the end of Saturday 14^th I had made 16 pictures in total, which put me two pictures,  two days ahead of schedule. Sunday 15th was my birthday and Father’s Day so I didn’t get started until the evening. As a result I only finished it on the Monday. Making picture 18 on Tuesday morning kept me a day ahead. However I still had enough oomph and had a plan for a ‘quick’ picture. I’m not sure which seaside pier this is, but I’ve always really liked piers. 10 minutes to do the sea wet on wet, then leave to dry. 10 minutes to do the sky then leave to dry. 10 minutes to do the light mountains and the dark mountains in the background. 15 minutes to paint the pier. Bish bosh, job’s a good’un.

20 I found it difficult to find the oomph to paint today.- Wednesday 18th. With my broken left shoulder I  have to sleep in an upright position and for the last three nights I have slept very poorly. I  pushed myself, remembering that this makes the two thirds complete mark. It’s a stupid thing but I’m feeling pressure now every time I  make another painting because it’s been going so well and I don’t want to spoil it with rubbish. So this is a statue of former poet laureate, lover of Victorian architecture, and architectural conservationist. It’s situated in St. Pancras Station in London.

So there we are. 20 completed, with 12 days of the month left.

30x30 Direct Watercolour challenge 14 - 16

Yes, folks, it's the 15th of June. as it happens it's my birthday, but it's also the end of the first half of the month of the 30x30 direct watercolour challenge.

In my last post I explained that I've managed to put myself a painting ahead of schedule. With three paintings made across Friday and Saturday, by yesterday evening I was 2 paintings ahead. I would like to make another today to stay that way but time will tell if that's going to happen.  So without further ado -

14 What can I say ? I  love huge fossils of extinct animals and the museums where they can be found. This in an exhibit in the La Brea Tar Pits, a bucket list destination. I tried hard with this one but it's not there, I'm afraid.

15 Thames Barge. I don't often copy other people's work, not least because my copies so often suck compared to the originals. but I made an exception for this,

16  I do love a choo choo. This is an interesting one because although it looks about 90 years old it was actually built in the 21st century, reusing a lot of parts from older,  scrapped engines.

2025 30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 9 - 13

 In my last post I showed my first 8 direct watercolours of this year's challenge. I have tried to produce full pictures, with backgrounds. My broken left shoulder means I can spend time on each picture and this may be why, in my opinion, these are the most consistent set I have produced in any year. Here are the next five. See whether you agree.

9 I find Americana a very fruitful source of inspiration, and likewise, I do enjoy portraying vehicles.

10- this is the beautiful city of Chester. At the moment this is about as good as I can do. Really pleased with this.

11 Way out of my comfort zone here, This was made on the 10th, the second picture of the day, to put me one day ahead.

12 I made this in my Canson mixed media journal. This is maybe why it is a little sketchy. I like the way that the bus wheel came out.

13 My reference photo has the car blue, but I love to see a red Morgan 3 wheeler so that's what I've painted. 

So that's where we ae - still 1 day ahead of schedule. More than a third done and closing in on the halfway mark

2025 30 x 30 Direct Watercolour Challenge

I don’t think I’ve posted since before last Friday, That was the day that I broke my left shoulder. Which is one good reason why I haven’t posted. One handed typing is a pain. One other reason why I haven’t posted since is that it’s now June, and June is the time of the 30x30 direct watercolour challenge. Direct watercolour means that you don’t sketch the design first – you have to go straight in with watercolour.

I first undertook the challenge in 2018 and I did complete it. I repeated in 2019, did not attempt it in 2020 and then made my third completion in 2021. Especially in these earlier years I quite often made quite sketchy paintings that were pretty quick and easy to do. I look at the stuff I did in those years and it’s not brilliant at all. Well, we all have to start somewhere. Then in 2022 I managed to make some pictures that I was quite proud of during the challenge. Not all of them by any means, but certainly some of them. In 2023 this continued, and although some of the first ten were a wee bit ropey, as a set they were clearly the best I’ve done. I loved the whole experience.

2024 it was a different story. Whereas my first ten were inconsistent the year before, now they were very consistent. Consistently bad. I didn’t think that any of them were any good. If I had managed one decent picture then maybe I might have continued. However they were all rubbish and I gave up after 10. I wasn’t annoyed with the fact that I wasn’t doing better than 23. I was angry with myself that I’d gone so far backwards.

So to 2025. I promised myself this –

I would give myself however long was necessary to make each painting and not go chasing the schedule of at least 1 per day.

I would on the same hand be prepared to stop working on each painting when I had done what I could and not overwork it.

I would be more experimental with colours

I would be doing it for fun

So 9 days in how is it going. Well, judge for yourself – here’s the first 8 –

1 – Old Royal Mail Van. One of my 2023 favourites also had an old postman’s van, although the one in this is older. Really pleased – a lot of quite difficult elements in this.

2 – Multicoloured warthog. I set out to be experimental here and I do rather like the results. One friend has already asked for a print.

3 – Donkey. Probably the weakest of the 8 so far. The actual modelling of the animal itself isn’t bad. I like the ghostly trees in the background. But I think I needed to be bolder with the colours. The overall effect is a little insipid.

4 – bull – Nothing insipid about the colours with this one. It was a bit of a reaction to what happened with the donkey and although it’s maybe a little more crude, I think it’s far more successful.

5 – 1940’s London. My plan with this was to use some bigger blocks of colour than I normally do and less detail and more suggestion. I am bowled over by the result. Yeah, it’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a painting that turned out very close to the picture that was in my head when I started. If I could have made something like this last year then I might well have completed the challenge.

6 – Oslo tiger statue – a very different painting, much bolder. I think the modelling of the statue itself is really good. Although when I was in Oslo in January it was so dull and gloomy it was hard to believe that the place ever looked like this.

7 – mid century grocer. It was time I made at least 1 picture where the focus is on a human figure. I have overworked the face, sadly. At least it’s not a complete wash out – I like the work on the shirt, for example.

8 – 30s/40’s Americana. While I was looking for reference photos for my grocer I came upon a photo showing this. I knew it would work as a subject if I could do my best to do it justice. Overall it took hours butt I’m stupidly pleased with the result

Well, look, I have to say that I think it’s the best start I’ve ever made to a 30x30 challenge. I think I’ve certainly spent more time on it than I’ve ever done before. Will the quality continue. Watch this space.