30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *27 Blackpool

 

We’re getting so close to completion now, peeps. I have been keeping this subject in my back pocket for a while, but lacking inspiration I couldn’t think of anything better today. Hence, back to the beach we go. This was painted on 24/6/26, which was the hottest day I think there had ever been in South Wales, so the subject just seemed to make sense. I love the sense of innocence about the scene. Lord knows, it can't have been a barrel of laughs living in England in the drab old 1950s, but this shows it wasn't all doom and gloom either. 

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30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *26 The Piper

 

Boer War again. Showing the drummer boy in the last, the piper here seemed a nice companion piece. Bagpipes are a marmite instrument, I think but I find them rather stirring. Apart from anything else I wanted to do a better job with the colour of the khaki uniforms of the soldiers than I did with the previous picture. This was another one I took just a few process photos of

Stage 1 – once again, I started by painting in the blocks of colour of the main shapes, all in very light shades that I could paint over or leave as they were depending on the effect that I wanted to achieve.

Stage 2

I added the first slightly darker layers of shading to the different areas of the painting.In some part sof the painting I would add another two layers onto the two that have already been applied in this photograph.

Stage 3

Darker layers added and now the figure has far more substance, particularly noticeable in the detailing of the kilt. The picture is really all about the figure, and I had deliberately left the background, which is pretty basic and featureless, to the end.

Last stage

A few last details give the figure a tiny bit more definition. A basic sandy background, and a basic lilac sky. I added the shadow beneath the figure and signed and numbered the painting. By now all that remains is to remove the masking tape.

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30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *25 Tommies

 If you've been following my blog at all in 2026 (don't worry, it isn't compulsory) you'll know I've become interested in the Boer War  - an unjust war if ever there was one. In 2025's challenge I painted a scene from the First World War with a tank, so I always planned to do at least one Boer war painting this year. 

This is based on a very well known photograph, with the sergeant major, the experienced private and the drummer boy. Makes you wonder how these children - and boys could serve overseas as young as 14, and that's a child- how these children  coped with some of the horrors that they must have witnessed.

I did make a fineliner sketch of the same scene earlier this year -

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30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2026 *24 Canterbury Street

I’m lucky. I love a lot of things which are actually fun to paint. It struck me that I haven’t done many buildings this year so far. So this is Canterbury.

I think that the closest to this kind of painting that I did in last year’s challenge was my painting of Chester. I enjoyed making the process photos for my rodeo picture so I did the same again for this one.

1)   As with the rodeo picture, I started with big blocks of light colour

Even though it’s in the background the tower of Canterbury Cathedral is the most striking feature of the composition so it was an easy choice to start there.

The next stage was to work on blocks of colour for the buildings on the left hand side. Why not the right? Because I’m right handed and it means I can rest my hand on the right hand side of the paper without smudging what’s there, because there isn’t anything there yet.

I put the two pavements either side of the road in next. They make a useful guideline to show me the bottom line of the buildings on the left. When I painted them in, there was a lot of shadow on that side, which meant that there would be less work to do when I came back to it to apply darker tones and details.

You can possibly see the the buildings on the right look more ‘finished’ than those on the left now. So the last stage of this first phase of making the painting saw me paint in the sky – light blue with just a hint of purple for a lilac colour, but bolder than I used for the rodeo painting. Then the road between the two pavements.

The second phase of the painting was to apply tone, shading and finer detail. As with the first phase I began with the Cathedral Tower and the buildings directly in front of it.

By this stage I’m maybe halfway through the work I need to do on the buildings on the left – but there is very little to do with the buildings on the right when I’ve finished them, so I know I’m nearing the finish line. Once the buildings are done there’s a little bit of detailing on pavements and road, then we’re nearly there.

And there we are, the painting done, just waiting for the masking tape to be removed. I do like this kind of scene, so I am pretty pleased with this. All in all it took a little over 4 hours in one sitting, but then it is a complicated picture, so I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Here’s the finished painting, minus tape.

 

I made a similar composition in an ink and watercolour sketch of York Minster a few years ago. The most similar thing I've done in the challenge would be 2025's painting of Chester. (see below) 

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30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *23 Brighton Pier

 

Seaside piers are something I've always loved. I painted piers in both of the last times I completed the challenge, in 2025 and 2023. 

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30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2022 *22 Yee Haw! (with process photos)

 I thought it might be nice to take some process photos with this 22^nd painting of this year’s 30x30 challenge. The subject is a rodeo horse and rider. Here’s the finished picture:-

So the first stage in making this A4 sized painting was to paint just the big shapes in the lightest colour of them.

I know it’s very light but you can just about make out that I have painted in blocks of colour the shapes of horse, rider and the signpost behind. This helps me establish whether the composition looks right on the page.The next stage was to start to apply the different tones to the horse, to use different tones to give light and shade, muscle definition etc.

At this stage I’ve applied four different tones of brown, the darkest of which has a tinge of purple.The horse really pops now. The next step was to do the same for the rider.

By this stage with most of the work on the horse and the rider done it did begin to feel as if I was on the home straight.The next thing to do was the sign, and to begin on the background. I didn’t want to paint too much into the background behind the horse.

I didn’t want to paint the sky so bright that the rider’s shirt would merge with it, so I opted for a very light blue with a touch of purple to give an almost lilac colour.

Just the sandy red ground beneath the horse left, and a few shadowy details. There we are – the finished picture again

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30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *21 Galapagos Giant Tortoise

 

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)

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