30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge and post birthday guilt

It’s early morning on Tuesday 16^th 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 7^th June. This put me 4 pictures ahead of the one a day schedule. By the 14^th 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 30^th 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.

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *17 The Finish Line

Number 17 and it has just worked out that it’s another one combining the beach and transport.

I don’t think it’s all that great, but I did my best with it. You have to accept that some of the painting in a set of 30 just aren’t going to be your favourites.

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.

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30x30 Grand Prix Cars 2021-2026

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.

30x30 Trams 2018-26

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.

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *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 gauge tramway which is run by 14 tramcars based on classic British tram designs, all built to either 1/2 or 2/3 scale. My daughter Jess sent me all of the photos she had taken on her phone, and this was my painting based on the one I thought I could make the best job of. I painted it yesterday as soon as we got back from the trip. 

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30x30 Watercolour Challenge *14 Old Grand Prix Pit Stop ( finished) and *15 Mel's Safari

 

This is the finished grand priz car painting. You know I don't usually do looseness very well, but I think I may have just about pulled it off with this one.

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.

So we're halfway there - fifteen painted, fifteen more to make. It's been harder going this week - purely in terms of time if nothing else. But there we are, Iim still two days ahead of schedule, so fingers crossed. 

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *14 - Old Grand Prix Pit Stop (unfinished)

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.

 It’s not finished yet – these transport paintings just refuse to be done quickly. I hopefully will finish it tonight.

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