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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30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge - Two Thirds Complete

I’ve been doing some number crunching. Last night I finished my 20^th painting of this year’s challenge. I made number 11 on June 7^th. 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 29^th. 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:-

11) Hoverlloyd SRN4 Hovercraft

So, the second linking theme I decided on was methods of transport. This segues nicely between the two themes. The SRN4 was the largest civil hovercraft ever built. These giants used to carry over 200 passengers and 30 odd cars between England and France between 1968 and 2000. I like this picture - sadly I never got to ride on one myself.

12) Old London Bus

The best painting I made in my very first completed challenge in 2018 was a bus just like this.London buses, trams and trolleybuses are a subject I come back to a lot. What can I say? You can take the boy out of London . . . 

13) Eenee Stanit

This is an old deliver van, from I believe the 1950s, for the London Evening Standard Newspaper, my favourite paper until I moved to South Wales in 1986. But why Eenee Stanit? Ah, if you know, then you know.

14) Pit Stop

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. 

15) Mel's Safari

My friend Mel and her husband have just returned from a once in a lifetime safari to celebrate her 60th birthday. I used on of the photographs she took as a reference for this painting. In 2023 I painted a terrible picture of elephants. Thank goodness this is quite a bit better.

16) The Seaton Tramway

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. The Seaton tramway opened in 1970, a narrow guage tramway which is run by 14 tramcars based on classic British tram designs, all built to either 1/2 or 2/3 scale. 

17) The Finish Line

Well, we're a week on from my hovercraft picture that combined beach and transport and here we are back combining the two again. This time it's a bike race, One of the less successful of this year's crop.

18) Prague Tram

I came up with an idea yesterday. Mightn't it be fun to take some of the subjects that I painted in 2018 and try painting the again now? I don't know how many more comparison pieces I'll do, if any, but this was fun and it got me right back on track too. 

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.

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *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.  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.

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30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *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.

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.

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