Waiting for June and the 30x30 challenge 2026

I’ll be winding down my Boer War cartoon copies over the next few days. Why? Because tomorrow is the first day of June. June is the month of the 30x30 Direct watercolour challenge. Direct watercolour means no preparation, no preliminary sketching, just making your watercolour painting directly onto your paper. The challenge is to average one painting per day and to complete 30 paintings in the month of June.

I first took part in the challenge in 2018 and I completed it. I repeated in 2019, didn’t start in 2020, completed it in 2021, 2022 and 2023. I started the challenge in 2024 but gave up. I’ll come back to that. Then I completed it again in 2025.

Certainly if you compared my 2025 set of paintings with my 2018 paintings I think you’d agree that I’ve improved. And again, I think that while I’ve produced some paintings I’m delighted with in each set since 2022, I think as a complete set each in the 2020s has been better than the previous. With the exception of 2024. Here’s some of my favourites from each set. Please bear in mind though that these were pretty much the best from each set - they weren't all like this:-

2018

 

2019

 

2021

 

2022

 

2023 

2025

Of course, this does mean that I can end up putting pressure on myself to outdo the previous year. So 2024 came along. And the first few paintings just didn’t work. This put me off and I started begrudging the time to spend doing it. Then I started trying to blag my way through the month by making small pictures in an A6 sketchbook. But the whole thing just made me so despondent I gave up before I was a third of the way through.

So getting off to a decent start tomorrow will be vital. Last year I was pleased with the painting I made of an old Royal Mail van which was so much better than anything I’d done the year before.

One of the obstacles I’ll need to overcome is that last year I broke my shoulder on the last weekend of May and was off work all June. Thankfully it was my left shoulder and I’m right handed so it didn’t affect my ability to paint, and being off work meant I had the time to do it. I’m in work every weekday in June now, so won’t have as much time for painting as I did last year. But then, most of the years I’ve completed the challenge I have also been in work every weekday so this doesn’t necessarily have to make it that much harder.

So, what are my chances? Pretty decent I think. I have the materials that I need- just bought some replacement brushes and paints yesterday. I have enough proper 300 gsm watercolour paper for all 30 paintings. I’ve learned just one or two more techniques since this time last year – only in the last few months have I learned how to use masking fluid, for example. I’ve thought about the sort of things that I might like to paint too – certainly for the start of the month I think I’m going to embrace a nostalgic seaside theme. So all we need now is for June to arrive so we can start. Watch this space.