Another comparison piece - I made a tortoise in 2018. I also painted my
favourite reptile, the Komodo Dragon in 2023 The Giant Tortoise is my second
favourite reptile, although there isn't a lot in it. Here’s the 2018
tortoise: -
- and here’s the 2023 Komodo Dragon (or as my dear old Nan
would call it, the Kimono Dragon)
I’ve been doing some number crunching. Last night I finished my 20th painting of this year’s challenge. I made number 11 on June 7th. This means that it took me 11 days to make the 10 paintings 11-20. If I keep to the same pace it means I should finish on Monday 29th. That doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room, but then it is rare for me to finish with more than a day or two in hand.
The most comforting thing is that I did have a feeling that
completing this second ten was going to be more challenging, and that the
likelihood was that I would end up having a couple of non-painting days and a
far less productive weekend during this period. So the fact that I only had 1
day when I didn’t paint at all is very encouraging. Here’s a quick run through
of the second ten:-
19) Beach Again
It works like this. I knew that I was only going to have at maximum 90 minutes between getting in from work and having to go out again. I needed a subject that I could finish very quickly in that time. I had been saving this subject for just such an occasion.
20 The Fourth Doctor
This is a second comparison piece. I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who for a very long time, and like a lot of people my age, the magnificent Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor was my absolute favourite. I painted him in my first go at the 30x30 in 2018.
This is a second comparison piece. I’ve been a fan of
Doctor Who for a very long time, and like a lot of people my age, the
magnificent Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor was my absolute favourite. Painted him n my first go at the 30x30 in
2018.
Here’s my 2018 painting of the great man:-
It was actually one of my better efforts from 2018, but
again, I hope that the comparison shows the journey I’ve been on with
watercolour over the last 8 years. I think it does.
It works like this. I knew that I was only going to have at maximum 90 minutes between getting in from work and having to go out again. I needed a subject that I could finish very quickly in that time. I had been saving this subject for just such an occasion.
So after feeling guilty for not having painted on Monday, I've done two in two evenings and one more will mean I've completed two thirds of this year's challenge.
A couple of days ago I posted showing comparisons between my depictions of trams throughout the challenges and my depictions of formula 1 cars throughout the challenges. This led on to the idea – wouldn’t it be fun to take some of the subjects that I painted in 2018 and paint them again now, for a comparison? I don’t know how many others I’ll do, but my latest painting, number 18, is a Prague tram, and I also painted one of these in 2018. Here’s today’s
And here’s 2018’s
I’m easily tempted to pull apart and criticise the 2018 picture, but I have to remember that I didn’t know any better. It shows at least that even then I could draw shapes pretty accurately with paint. But I had a long way to go to learn how to give different areas of light and shade to large blocks of colour. I had a lot to learn about using colour full stop.
It’s early morning on Tuesday 16th June and I’m feeling guilty. I didn’t paint yesterday. I have an excuse. It was a working day, and it was my birthday. By the time I got home from work the house was full with my 5 children and five grandchildren. They trickled away during the evening, then we went for a celebratory meal, I was tired and went to bed after everyone had left.Do I blame myself? No way. It was a special evening that I enjoyed very much.
But this is one of the downsides of the challenge. If you’re
not careful you can use it as an excuse to put pressure on yourself. I started
this year’s challenge on express pace, making 11 paintings by the end of the 7th
June. This put me 4 pictures ahead of the one a day schedule. By the 14th
I’d only managed another 6 paintings. This still meant I was three ahead. But
then not painting yesterday meant I finished the evening just 2 ahead, and this
morning I’m only 1 ahead, although I plan to paint when I get in this evening.
This is my problem. Once I’ve really got my teeth into a
challenge I get too driven and start to invest emotionally in it. On the one
hand this means when you complete then you get a huge satisfaction from it as
you do when you paint a painting you’re pleased with. But the other side of the
coin is that I start fretting that I’m not going to complete it, and that my
paintings are not as good as last year, etc. etc.
Now, the rational part of my brain says – so what? If you
don’t complete 30 by the end of 30th June, does it make the ones you’ve
done into worse paintings?! Of course, objectively, no it doesn’t, but the
obsessive completist in me wants them to be a really good AND complete set of
paintings.
The great Marc Taro Homes writes of getting over the hump
in the challenge, which I guess is like getting through the wall when you’re
running a marathon. I hope that this is my hump and I can get through it in the
next few days. If I can be at 20 by close of play on Friday Evening then I can’t
be too unhappy.
Number 17 and it has just worked out that it’s another one combining the beach and transport.
Last week, in one way, was hard work because the pictures I
painted on the weekday evenings were complex and time consuming. I’m still 2
days ahead of schedule and that’s good, but I only did 6 pictures in the whole
of last week, so it could be that this is going to go right down to the wire
this year. Well, I’m pretty fatalistic about it. I have really enjoyed what I’ve
done so far. Chances are I’m not going to have any more time in the evenings
this week than I did last week, but I’m not going to just dash off any old
rubbish to make up time. I WILL finish – but if the last couple end up in the
start of July, that’s life.
Switching from beach scenes to transport for the 30x30 means that I‘ve returned to some subjects I’ve done before. I thought it might be fun to compare them. So let’s look at Grand Prix Cars
I painted my first formula 1 Grand Prix car in 2021 – it just
didn’t occur to me to paint them in 2018 or 2019
2021
For what it is, it’s okay. Proportions aren’t too bad and
if it was done as some kind of speed challenge – paint an F1 car as quickly as
you can then I would have no complaints. But this approach, quick application
of blocks of colour with little or no attempt to show the background never
produced paintings I really liked
2022
This is still one of my favourite paintings I’ve ever made
for any 30x30 challenge. Car, figures, background, it all pretty much works.
Together with the first tram painting I made in 2022, this pointed the way
forward for me.
2023
What a disappointment. Sometimes you produce a painting
that isn’t as good as a similar one you made the year before, but rarely one
that is so much worse. Harsh? Well, if you want to make progress, it helps to
be honest with yourself. Not the best choice of subject, but I really think
that the car is not brilliantly modelled and generally the colours are too
drab.
I did not paint a grand prix car in 2024.
2025
I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s maybe quite as good as the
2022 picture. But it’s miles better than 2023. I really like the stand with the
flags on the far left.
2026
One thing I’ve noticed about 2026 is that I’m loosening up
a little bit from last year, and I’m liking the results. This is a good
demonstration of this.
Switching from beach scenes to transport for the 30x30 means that I‘ve returned to some subjects I’ve done before. I thought it might be fun to compare them. Let’s start with trams:-
2018
Yes, I was painting trams even as far back 12 2018. I like
the composition, but the execution, not so much. But at that time I didn’t know
how to do it any better.
2019
This is Lisbon painted in 2019 and I’m sorry but it’s poor.
I’m not embarrassed because I know that I was doing the best that I could at
the time but I think it’s fair to say that I had yet a long way to go to find
my way.
2022
I mean, this is an improvement on 2019, but it’s still very
basic. This is a Swansea-Mumbles tram.
2022
With the benefit of hindsight, this 2022 painting was a
watershed for me. To me there’s been a huge leap forward since the tram
painting the previous year. This painting, more than any other, showed me the
way forward and showed me that I was capable ot painting direct watercolour as
well as my normal watercolours and acrylics where I sketched the design first.
It didn’t mean I would always paint this well, but it did mean that I could
strive to get there. This isn’t a perfect painting, I know. The perspective in
the tram body is wrong, unfortunately.
2022
I don’t think that this is as good as the one I’d already
done in 2022, but it’s still showing the kind of improvement I had made since
2021.
I did not paint another tram in 2023 or 2024
2025
Okay, so it’s a tram that has been parked for good and
converted into a café, but it’s one of the very best paintings I did in 2025.
2026
Maybe not as good as the 2025 vintage, but then the subject
did invite taking a more impressionistic approach.
As well as the 30x30 Challenge, my birthday is in June. I love trams and so my youngest daughter and my son in law took me to the Seaton Tramway as a pre birthday treat.
My friend Mel has just come back from a once in a lifetime safari trip to celebrate her 60th birthday. This next painting - Mel's Safari - saw me use a photo she took as a reference. I loved the photo as soon as I saw it and she graciously sent me an electronic copy to use.
Back in 2022, there were two paintings I made during the challenge which made me step back and (I say it as shouldn’t) think – blimey – that’s actually good! -. One of them was an old grand prix car at Goodwood. Ever since then, whenever I’ve completed the challenge I’ve made a painting of an old grand prix car as part of the set. The painting in 2023 was very disappointing. Last year’s wasn’t bad at all. Here’s this year’s.
So this is the 13th painting of this year’s challenge.
It’s a London newspaper delivery van from, I would guess, the 1950s. Strictly speaking it’s an Evening Standard van. Why does it say Eenee Stanit? Hey, if you know, you know. Before I moved away from London in the mid 80s, the London Evening Standard was my favourite newspaper.
These transport subjects are tending to be more complex than the beach paintings of last week. Consequently it’s taken me three evenings to do the last two. But the thing will be not to panic and keep plodding on. Two more and I will at least be halfway. I’m not going to have a huge amount of time tonight because I’m hosting the quiz at the rugby club but if I can at least make a start then it’s all good.
12 paintings into the 30x30 Watercolour challenge and my elementary maths tells me that I’m 2/5 of the way through. So far it has been going pretty well in terms of quality, but my 12th picture did prove to be a bit of a hurdle. It’s a complicated picture of an old London bus, which I wrote about in my previous post. Well, I just didn’t have enough time on Monday to finish it. Here’s the finished painting:-
Some people who do the challenge talk and write about getting over a hump, by which they mean reaching the point in the challenge where you have pushed yourself and come so far that there is no doubt that you will complete it. For me personally it comes down to managing the resources that you have. The most important of which are, to my mind:-
Inspiration
Time
Mindset
Nothing there about paint, paper or brushes, you understand. Well, those are easy enough to get hold of. If we deal with each then, let’s start with inspiration. After all – it’s all very well saying that you are going to make 30 paintings, but what are you going to paint? In the past I’ve always taken a pretty relaxed approach. I think what sort of thing I’d like to paint on the day, then try to narrow it down to a specific idea. But this year I’ve tried to be a bit more disciplined and think in terms of themes. 9 out of my first 11 paintings had some element of beach or seaside about them. My last 2 paintings and the one I’m working on for number 13 are all methods of transport. I have another couple of themes up my sleeve for later on. It makes such a difference not having to think about WHAT you are going to paint, only about HOW you are going to paint it.
With regards to time, well, you have the time that you have. So it is all about making the most of the time that you have got. For me this means being pretty disciplined about sitting down to start painting after I get in from work at about 5pm. It also means being prepared to say – I’m not going to finish this today – and going to bed at a reasonable hour so that I’m fresh for work the next day. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. In 2024 and 2025 I was off work both years and had the luxury of having all the time I could ask for. I still didn’t complete in 2024.
I just mentioned that I didn’t complete in 2024. My mindset was not right. Party this happened because my first few paintings were poor, so, thinking that the way I was painting I had little or no chance of making a better set than I’d made in 2023 I started to think of it as a chore. I wanted to get through each painting as quickly as I could, merely as a ticking them off exercise rather than something I enjoyed that was worth doing for its own sake. No wonder I gave up.
In 2025, being as I was off work with a broken shoulder, I
never really had to face what can be a real issue when I’m trying to do the
challenge properly. When I’m doing it properly I’m trying to make the best
paintings that I can make, but that takes time. Some days, I just don’t have
enough of that particular commodity.
Like yesterday. After work there was my car to pick up from
the garage where it had undergone the annual MOT test. Then it was my job last
night to finish making the meal. Then there was eating it. All of which meant
that I didn’t actually start painting until after 7pm. That’s an issue. Why?
Well, in the room in which I paint, even at this time of year when the longest
day of the year is only a couple of weeks away, once you get much past 7pm you
need the lights on, and I much prefer painting in daylight to painting in
artificial light.
I whacked on for two hours and got as far as you can see in the picture. But you know, I’m an older feller now, and I was knackered. When I’m knackered, I have to think about how it will affect me in work the next day. So I stopped at this point. The plan is to finish it tonight. Watch this space.
This is Pegwell Bay in Margate and the huge thing with the propellors is the SRN4 hovercraft that could carry 200+ passengers and 30 cars across the English Channel. It ran from 1968 - 2000, and to my shame I never had the chance to rise it. Unlikely to happen now. Only one of them still survives and it's a static display in the Hovercraft Museum.
Yes, dearly beloved, I am a week into the 30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2026, and I’ve already made 10 paintings which means I’m one third of the way towards completion.
To put this into perspective, I completed 7 paintings in
the first week in 2025. When you consider that I was off work with a broken
left shoulder so I had all day to paint if I wanted in 2025, then that makes
what I’ve managed in the last week even more impressive.
Ah, but you may say, yes, that’s all very well and good,
but considering you’ve completed the challenge in 2018,19,21,22,23 and 25, 6
times in 8 years, then why would there be any question of you not completing it?
Well, if you look at the list of years again, the two really interesting things
are the omissions. In 2020 I just never got round to starting it. In 2024
though I started in very high hopes and just blew it. It wasn’t because I didn’t
have enough time for it. I did no preparation for it and made he first couple
of paintings on pretty poor paper. It didn’t help, but then again my heart
really wasn’t in it, I lost enthusiasm because however hard I tried, the paintings
weren’t getting any better and to me seemed nowhere near the standard of the
best paintings I made in 2023. It became a daily chore just to get something,
anything down on paper and after 8 paintings I gave up.
In 2025 I got off to a good start, and that made all the
difference.
So, how have I done in 2026 so far? I decided to make at
least my first few paintings on a nostalgic beach theme and 8 of my 10
paintings so far have been just that. Click on the pictures to see them full
size
1) 1) Whitley Bay
3) 3) Grandpas
on beach duty. I’m a grandpa myself.
6) 6) The
Wreck – I found a reference photo showing this flying boat and I knew that I
was going to want to paint it
8) The
sandcastle builders – I had the guts to go a bit stronger with the colours here
9)Okay - so here's the two most recent that I hadn't posted yet.
9) Beach Donkeys - I thought that I hadn’t yet shown any donkeys on a beach yet. Deliberately didn’t show them giving any kids rides as I don’t really like that sort of thing.
10)
Ice cream on the prom –
I haven’t yet decided the theme for the next 10 – if any.
Watch this space. As a set I’m delighted with the first 10, though. I think
they’re the best first 10 I’ve made in any year of the challenge.
