Yes, dearly beloved, I did complete the 30x30 Direct
Watercolour Challenge 2023 before the end of June – just about. Let’s start
with a few thoughts on each of the paintings.
1) Mont. St. Michel
I didn’t actually get round to starting until the 3rd of
June this year. I copied an original painting for this one. It was for a prompt
on Sketching every Day – a fun Facebook group to which I am proud to belong.
It’s not a patch on the original, obviously. Still, I like it. The sky didn’t
come out quite as I planned, but I think overall it’s a nice piece of work.
2) St. Michael’s Mount
Having done the Mont St. Michel copy, I wanted to see if I
could make my own original painting of St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, in a
similar style. I’m pleased with what I achieved here. It’s a simpler painting
than number 1, with no real details on the land. However, I think that the
effect I’ve got with the sky, the sea and land does give it a misty, dreamlike
quality. The best thing about it is that it is very close to the painting I
envisaged when I started to paint it.
3) London Blackfriars Bridge
I was born, grew up and went to University in London. I
might not have lived there for well over 30 years, but it always has a special
place in my heart. I love bridges too. Last year I painted a misty Tower
Bridge. This is a better picture than that. Water, sky and ghostly tower blocks
in the distance all contrast with the solidity of the bridge itself.
4) Old Formula 1 race
In the 2022 challenge I painted an old racing car at
Goodwood that I’m extremely pleased with. Not so pleased with this one. Colours
are muted and washed out. Not enough detail with the stands. A bit of a
failure. Partly this is because it’s not drawn well enough. The car isn’t great
and the stand is quite poor. Partly it’s because I painted ground and sky first
and then put figures and car over them. This really worked against the
painting. Something I tried to remember for the rest of them yet to come.
5) Old Man with his dog
I liked this image when I found a photograph on the net. I
tried hard with it, but somehow it is not quite how I wanted it to be. The
stony path behind them could be a lot better, but I just couldn’t seem to get
it, and some of the foliage really doesn’t work. It looks like there’s a lot of
negative space behind the leaves because the green background behind them is
too light. The dog is not modelled very well either. The man isn’t bad, and the
reflections in the water are OK. Not a complete failure, but not a huge success
either. In terms of the challenge though I had completed 5 by the end of June 4th.
6) Old Tow truck
4 days passed and it wasn’t until Friday 9th
that I put brush to paper again. Not too bad. I like the sky effect and the
contrast with the grassy land, where the grassy bits fade as you go further
down the picture. The tow truck isn’t actually badly modelled, but it could
just be a little more distinct.
7) Platform of Southgate Tube Station
Painted on the next
day after the truck. I finished off the truck first on Saturday 10th
June. Often when I paint two in the same day I find the second is better, and
so is this one. I love the tube but have never before painted a tube train in a
station to my satisfaction. This works with some really nice shadow effects.
I’ve already sold prints of it.
8) Elephant family
Two steps forward, one step back. This doesn’t work for me.
It needed more subtlety merging the changes of tone and colour. When you look
at it the elephants seem to merge into one another. The foliage is too weak and
wishy washy as well. Both the 5th painting and this one highlighted
that I have an issue with painting foliage and I resoled to try it a little
differently in future pictures. Live and
learn. I didn’t finish this on Saturday but did so early on Sunday 11th.
9)Clevedon Pier at Sunset
Exactly what I was trying for. The finished painting on the
page is rarely the picture I see in my head when I start painting, but this one
is. The sunset sky is something I did really well – the reflection on the sea,
not so well. You can see my skills drawing with the brush in the pier
silhouette. All of which proves that you don’t have to put an overwhelming
amount of detail in to make a striking picture. Incidentally, this was picture
2 of the day again.
10) Hampton Court Palace Tudor Gateway
The third painting (alright, the elephants was just
finished off on the Sunday) of Sunday 11th. Criticism first. On the
right hand side the perspective is just a little out. I was asked to paint this
for my daughter Jessica, who is mad about the Tudors and visited the place last
year. It took HOURS to get the brickwork effect. It’s quite a striking piece
though.
11) Little Red Corvette
I painted this on the evening of Monday 12th after school –
my day job is an English teacher of children aged 11 – 16. I like this original
model of corvette. It’s not badly paint drawn either, though some of the
reflection lines are a wee bit wobbly. I think that the background sets off the
car quite well. There are stilla few issues with the trees inn the background,
but the trees on the left hand side are better, and show some improvement. Pleased
with this.
12) The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen
Tuesday 13th June. I’m going to Copenhagen in
August, so that’s the inspiration for this. I had to keep painting layer after
layer on the mermaid to get her to where she is in the painting, but I think it
works. She is by far the most substantial thing in the painting, as I tried to
get a hazy quality to the harbour in the background.
13) Tower Bridge
After painting number 12 on the Tuesday evening I had no
more time to paint until the Friday evening. I went into Friday 16th
4 days behind! In 2022 I painted Tower Bridge in the fog in the distance. It
was okay, but I thought I could do better. This one is a bit of a curate’s egg.
Good in parts. I like the nearest tower, but somehow the rest of it, especially
the dark reflections in the water just don’t work like I hoped. Must try
harder.
14) Kent Oast House
Bright and early on the morning of Saturday 17th,
I painted this. I have family in Kent and have seen a lot of these oast house
conversions. I wanted to get a bright and cheerful picture postcard feel. Somehow
the oast house itself seems just a little out, the conical roof could have been
wider at the bottom. Likewise the left had wall of the tower seems a little out
of true. On the positive side of the ledger I’m pleased with the trees and
greenery in this one. Changing the way I portray trees seems to have worked
better in this painting.
15) Old Royal Mail van
This is the second painting on Saturday 17th
June, which meant I’d caught up one of the deficit. It shows what the good old
postman’s van looked like when I was a kid. I love the colours and the drawing
out of the Morris Minor van, this part of the painting worked just as I wanted.
The postman’s head is just a little too big, and the shack in the background is
a little out of true. I still love this though. It’s one of my favourites of the
2023 challenge.
16) Old Signal Box
Sunday 18th June. There are things I like about
what I managed here, and things I’m not quite so fond of. The perspective of
the box isn’t quite right, and it’s a shame. The trees behind are really rather
good. I’m especially pleased with the effect that I achieved by leaving the
negative space to make the branches and trunks of the trees on the right.
17) Brecon Mountain Railway
Second painting on Sunday 18th.The day before as
a birthday treat (birthday was Thurs 15th) my youngest daughter and
my son on law took me for a ride on the Brecon Mountain Railway. This was a
great day out, and the painting here is based on a photograph I took. Nice work
on the engine and the background to the left of it. Quite good foliage, and the
hillside quite nicely depicted. The stuff to the right of it, meh, not so much.
I’d now completed 17 in 18 days.
18) Sailing ship sunset
I’ll be honest, this was the third painting on the 18th and
being as it was the end of the weekend I thought another silhouette based
painting might be a relatively easy way to bring myself up to date. And to be
fair the sky, the land and the sea are pretty good too. My problem is the sails
of the ship. Somehow, they’re more lumpy and crude than I would have liked.
Nonetheless this at least brought me up to date, with 18 paintings made by the
18th June. I had been behind schedule ever since the 4th
June.
19) American Civil War
Monday 19th June – evening. Every painting I did
after the first 2 this year I’ve tried to do something different to the
previous. This is a vivid action picture. Most of it I really like. The only
real issue I have with it is the Union soldier on our right. He’s not modelled
brilliantly, his facial features are very indistinct and his hat is out of
proportion. However, I do like the forest behind them. I used the trick with
negative space again, leaving some blank and painting in others. I didn’t
finish on the Monday so had to do so on Tuesday 20th.
20) Boy on a Dolphin
Tuesday 20th June. The Civil War painting took
quite a long time. As it was I was late in from the day job on Monday, and so I
didn’t finish it on Monday evening. This put me back behind. I completed it on
the Tuesday, but then I still needed to do another one in order to put me back
on schedule. So I picked one of the simplest subjects I’ve earmarked in order
to be able to do it relatively quickly. This is a painting of one of my
favourite pieces of public art in London. It’s called Boy on a Dolphin and it’s
by the sculptor, the late David Wynne. It was unveiled on the Thames Embankment
in 1974. I first saw it around then when I was a kid and I thought it was
wonderful. I used to pass it cycling between home in Ealing and University in
New Cross. This is quite nice, despite the simplicity of the painting. Also, it
put me back on schedule.
21) Anthony Hopkins as Odin
Wednesday 21st June. It was only really halfway
through June in 2022 that I made up my mind to treat direct watercolour
paintings in the same way that I treat ones which I can pencil sketch first. I
have learned to trust my ability to draw even relatively complex subjects with
the paintbrush. It struck me that I haven’t done any portraits yet this year.
Now, in 2018, the first year I undertook the challenge, I did paint a portrait
of Anthony Hopkins. It was putrid, a poor painting which looked nothing like
him. So I decided to have another go at Port Talbot’s finest. This time I
decided to paint him as Odin in Thor. I’ll be honest, it’s by far the best
watercolour portrait I’d ever made up to this time, and encouraged me to do the
couple more which came after.
22) Greyhound Racing
Thursday 22nd June. I’ve several times painted
horse racing scenes in acrylic and in watercolour – I’ve even been commissioned
to do a couple in the past. However I’d never tried to paint greyhounds before.
After discovering that I could paint horses in acrylic pretty well, I tried
painting other animals in acrylic. The camel was okay, but the deer was not
good, so I wasn’t certain I could do this. The choice of colours is something
I’m really pleased with in this picture. The drawing of the dogs isn’t perfect,
but the colour contrasts make this zing off the page to my mind.
23) BSA Bike.
Friday 23rd June. I was really happy that I had
managed to keep up to date during the week. Now, with the weekend at hand, the
plan was to forge ahead, maybe even completing the challenge by Sunday 25th. Again,
this is another painting where the use of colours and tones make it leap off
the page. I’ve never been a motor bike guy, but my first ever push bike was a
BSA. I thought – well I’ve done cars, locomotives and trams before, so why not
a bike? I’m pleased with the slightly abstract background to the right, it
gives the idea of moving at speed. The foliage also works well having this
blurry quality to contrast with the sharp focus on the bike and rider.
24) Parisian Delivery Man c. 1900
Saturday 24th June. This is based on an old
black and white photograph. Almost everything on the left hand side of the
painting I love. Almost everything on the right, not so much. The guy in it
looks a little like Van Gogh in my painting. The colour of the man’s jacket is
just too extreme in my picture. It’s a shame because by and large I think I’ve
done almost everything else in the picture rather well. Oh well. My
mother-in-law asked to buy it, so somebody likes it. No, I didn’t accept her
money, but gave it as a gift.
25) Who You Gonna Call?
I started this one rather late on Saturday. The plan had
been to make three but lethargy and the fact that the previous painting took a
long time meant that I didn’t start this early enough. I had actually planned a
Ghostbusters portrait before I even thought about Odin. That was just a spur of
the moment thing. Still, I did wait until number 25. I am so pleased with this
one. The likeness of Dan Aykroyd is quite good. The likeness of Harold Ramis is
better. The way the colours work is great. I’m really rather proud of this,
especially since it’s direct watercolour. I didn’t finish it until Sunday 25th.
26) Unigate Milk Float
Sunday 25th June. Yay – last 5. We were on the
home straight. Which is just as well because
by the Sunday when I painted this my neck and shoulder were in agony
with tendonitis. My wrist was hurting as well. I donned my trusty wrist
support, but I can’t paint with it on. With only 5 left though I just wasn’t
going to stop. So, number 26. Yes, yet another vehicle. In this case a milk
float. I never worked with Unigate milkmen, but I did work with milkmen from a
local West London dairy.
One day, when I was 12, I said to my mother- “Mother, I
should very much like some more pocket money, if you please.” To which she
replied words to the effect of – well go and work for it then! There was a
dairy at the end of the next street to ours, and that’s where I began.
I like this painting. It’s maybe not the most interesting
subject, but I think it’s pretty well executed. Also it put me ahead of
schedule for the first time in weeks.
27) Stan and Ollie
Feeling that the Force was with me after the Ghostbusters
painting, I chanced my arm with this one. It was the third painting of the Sunday
but I was mindful of the fact that it would be the end of the month before next
weekend. If I could just do this one more, that would leave 3 to do in 5
evenings. Ollie’s face isn’t quite there – well, neither is Stan’s for that
matter. But I like the colours here very much.
28) Komodo Dragon
Monday 26th June. Made this one on the Monday
evening after work when I’d been wearing my wrist support all day. The Komodo
dragon is probably my favourite reptile, although I’m also rather fond of
Galapagos giant tortoises. I thought this one would be relatively easy to
complete on a weekday evening. Somehow, as a composition it manages to be less
than the sum of its parts. As the ‘star’ of the painting I ought to have made
the dragon a lot bigger. The tail blends too much into the sand as well. I like
the land in the background, but somehow the whole thing lacks impact.
29) Show Jumping
I was getting a little demob happy with this one, being
close to the end. I started painting it on the evening of Tuesday 27th.
The rider and horse took absolutely ages. In fact I hadn’t even finished the
horse’s legs when I had to quit for the evening. I’d put in the first layer of
colour in the background, but it was still quite a way from finished.
It took between an hour and an hour and a half to finish on
Wednesday 28th. It’s not a bad attempt, I think. I’ve painted better
horses and riders in my time, but for direct watercolour it really isn’t bad. I
think that the trees work miles better here than they did in the early
paintings I made for this challenge.
30) Indiana Jones
I love the Indiana Jones movies. What with the latest –
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny opening now it seemed obvious to me to
finish with the lad himself, although this is based on a picture when he was a
lot younger than he is now. Here’s the thing with portraits. Sometimes you
never ‘get’ the likeness. Sometimes you get it very quickly, then, as happened
with my painting here, I ‘got’ the likeness quickly, then lost it. I didn’t
panic, but I hadn’t got it back by the time I finished for the evening, my plan
being to wait until the painting was almost complete before applying any
remedial work to the face. I didn’t finish on Weds 28th. The next
day though I painted in the background, and did some refining work on the man’s
features, and got back the likeness to a certain degree.
So, 30 direct watercolour paintings completed and all by 18:00
hrs on Thursday 29th June.
So, you may well ask, what was the point of doing the 30x30
direct watercolour challenge? You may well ask in particular, what was the
point of doing the challenge when you had successfully completed it four times
before? Two slightly different questions, but I will endeavour to answer them
both.
What’s the point of doing the 30x30 direct watercolour
challenge? Reason number 1. It’s fun. The daily challenge of coming up with a
different subject to paint is stimulating. Trying not to repeat yourself too
much. 2. I do feel a sense of achievement every year in completing the
challenge. It’s not like the first time, not quite, but it’s still a nice
feeling. 3. For the last two years I’ve been confident enough to sell some of
the paintings I’ve made in the challenge and have made enough money to keep me
in paints and paper for a long time.
What’s the point of doing the challenge when you’ve already
completed it four times before? There’s a simple answer to this one. Each time
I do it, I try to do it better.
In some ways, I feel as if I am a natural draughtsman. I
say this in as much as I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember, and I
have always had the ability to convey what I see in my mind’s eye to the piece
of paper, be it through HB pencil, charcoal, charcoal pencil or sketching pen.
I am very much NOT a natural painter. When I started back in 2015, I had a set
of acrylics, so that was what I used to make paintings. I had a few stabs at
watercolour, but really struggled. I found that I didn’t really understand
colour at all and tended to do wet on dry for every picture I tried to make.
I’d make them too wishy washy, or too bold. Watercolour is a medium capable of
delivering great subtlety. Subtlety is very much not my middle name.
So, the first time I did the challenge, it wasn’t a case of
seeing how well I could do. No, it was seeing if I could do it at all. The 2018
set are really not great, but I don’t cringe when I see them because if you
compare them to the 2023 set it’s clear I’ve been on a journey. If you compare
the sets, I hope you can see that I’ve become better at drawing with a brush.
As I said, my drawing skills have always been my strong suit and I think that
this starts to come across in the 2023 set. I’ve also improved with both my use
of colour, and with my use of different techniques. With regards to drawing
with a brush and colour, compare my 2021 Swansea tram with my 2022 Swansea
tram. Likewise, compare my Anthony Hopkins from 2018 with my Anthony Hopkins
from 2023.
I’m still on a journey with watercolour and with direct
watercolour in particular. My goals for 2023 were to paint full page, complete
paintings. That I have done. Another goal was to not shy away from any subject
and to trust in my drawing skills. Until about halfway through 2022 there were
subjects I wouldn’t even consider trying to paint direct. That I think I have
achieved this year as well, and by and large my drawing skills have proven
adequate to the subject. I also wanted to try to use colour and a few
techniques to try to get the best results I could. By and large I think I’ve
succeeded in more of this set than in any of their predecessors.
So I don’t know if I’m going to undertake the challenge
again next year. Probably will because I enjoyed this year so much. If so, I
will have to consider my goals closer to the time.
