I'm No Roy Cross

It’s quite possible that the name Roy Cross doesn’t mean a great deal to you. That’s okay, this is not a test. However if you’re a man who grew up in the UK or several other countries during the 1960s or the 1970s, I bet that you’ve seen some of his artwork. For Roy Cross produced the artwork that graced the packaging of many, many Airfix model kits. He was, in my opinion, a very fine artist, who, in the hope of securing regular work, wrote to Airfix headquarters enclosing samples of his work. Airfix, knowing a good thing when they saw it, commissioned him to produce artwork for the packaging of a model of a German Dornier bomber. Thus began a long and fruitful partnership. Sadly, Roy passed away a little while ago, having just reached the age of 100.

For me, one of the huge advantages that Airfix models had over rivals was the Roy Cross artwork on the boxes. Even now just looking at the artwork brings wee tingle of excitement to me.

Okay. Now, if you cast your mind back to June , you may recall that as one of the 30x30 challenge paintings I made this-

I worked out when I was doing it that I wanted to use this specific livery , the Hoverlloyd livery, because that was the livery in the Roy Cross painting for the Airfix kit of the SRN4. Now, even if I had permission to reproduce the Roy Cross picture here, I wouldn’t. This is not a copy, and believe me, as you would see, I’m no Roy Cross. But it did set me thinking.

Now, I was a pretty dedicated Airfix modeler from the age of about 5 or 6 right through until my O Levels. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at Frog, Revell or Tamiya, or Matchbox when they produced model kits for a while, but Airfix were my faves. Then life intervened. My son was never interested in modelling or anything craftwise in general and so that way back in was never opened to me. Then, maybe five years ago, I discovered that Airfix – who have passed through different owners more than once since, is still out there. I bought a kit of the Aston Martin DB5 to see if I could rekindle the flame. I just didn’t really enjoy it – maybe because I have other outlets for my creativity now.

Still, thinking about the SRN4 kit. I could afford to buy it now. But I don’t want to. I’m not interested in building it. But. I can’t help wishing that I’d bought it or had it bought for me back in the day. Which led to me thinking about other models that got away. Another one was the Type B London Bus. Which purely coincidentally I also painted during the 30x30 challenge – straight after the SRN4 –

AS it happened I also painted this type of bus as my last painting of the 2018 challenge

Which set me to thinking. Why don’t I make a few more pictures of the subjects of the kits that got away? And today, I made another one.

It’s a rather unusual looking plane called the Short Skyvan. The back of the plane opened up and you could drive a vehicle into it. They also carried passengers. I’ve painted this in the Olympic Airways livery artly because this was the livery of the plane on the painting of the box lid, but also because I did actually see one of these on my first visit to Greece in 1982. I was island hopping and could only afford ferries, so I didn’t get to fly in one, more’s the pity. The 30x30 is over so I sketched it roughly in pencil first:-

I did think about going straight in with paint as I’ve become more and more confident with y draughtsmanship with direct watercolour over the last couple of years, but what the hell? Here’s the finished painting

Now I somehow doubt that this painting would shift that many model kits, but it’s pretty decent. As I said, I’m no Roy Cross.

Now Appearing on a screen near you

 Very near, in fact right in front of you. I've made a little video of the paintings from this year's challenge. click on the icon on the bottom right to go full screen. Enjoy

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge - The Final 10

 So – the challenge is complete. The first ten were done in a very swift 7 days or so while the second ten took a relatively glacial 11 days. How did I do with the final ten? Well, 9 days is pretty reasonable, especially considering that I took two days off in that time. Well, for the record, here they are :-

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. 

22) Rodeo

I don't really know why I picked this subject, but I did take some process photos while I was making it. I posted these in the blog.

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. 

24)Canterbury Street Scene

I do like street scenes and it struck me that I haven't painted one for this year's challenge yet. This is Canterbury. 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. 

25) Boer War downtime 

 

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.

26) 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. 

 27) Blackpool Beach Ball

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 know, 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.

28) Think, McFly, Think! 

 

Yes, It's another film franchise painting, from the man who bought you Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones in 2023. Come on, you have to at least love the original film. 

29) Cowboy

 

I enjoyed my rodeo painting so much that I decided to do this one as well. It’s not often that the finished painting looks like the vision I had in my head when I started the painting but this was one of those times. 

30) Rainy Day In Blackpool

 

And the challenge is complete! It somehow seemed appropriate to go with the beach again, and since all of the other beach paintings have been in sunny weather, I though I’d best include a rainy scene. If you grow up in Britain you know all about rainy days at the seaside. 

Here's photographs showing the paintings together -

2026 1-10

 

2026 11-20

 

 

2026 21-30

 

 

#30x30DirectWatercolor

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *29 Cowboy and *30 Blackpool Rain

 So here we are, good people. It’s the 28^th June and yesterday afternoon I completed the 30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge for 2026 with 3 days to spare. Once again I’ve surprised myself with some of the paintings I’ve made. Yes, I am a little disappointed with a couple, but not many, and it has been a hugely enjoyable experience. It’s more of an achievement for me than last year since I had all day every day of June to do it then. This year I’ve been working on every week day, so that makes this 7^th completion even a little bit more special.

I was eager to finish and so I decided to do something I’ve only rarely done – complete the last two paintings at the same time. Here’s just a couple of photographs.

I took this one after I’d painted in the main light colour blocks on both pictures. Neither painting is quite as complex a subject as some of the others I’ve painted during the challenge.

So my original plan was to paint in the details on the horse, then go back across and work on the Blackpool picture. As you can see from the next photograph, this didn’t happen. I found that I was enjoying the cowboy painting so much I just wanted to carry on with it.

I broke from lunch after getting to this stage. The cowboy is finished, and when I’d eaten I was ready to start the last painting session of the challenge

The paintings are done, and just waiting for the masking tape to be removed. Let’s have a look at the finished paintings

29) Cowboy

I enjoyed my rodeo painting so much that I decided to do this one as well. It’s not often that the finished painting looks like the vision I had in my head when I started the painting but this was one of those times.

30) Rainy Day In Blackpool

And the challenge is complete! It somehow seemed appropriate to go with the beach again, and since all of the other beach paintings have been in sunny weather, I though I’d best include a rainy scene. If you grow up in Britain you know all about rainy days at the seaside.

I will probably need a bit of time to really get my thoughts about this year's challenge together, so I'm going to leave it there for now.

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30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge *28 Think, McFly, Think!

 

Yes, It's another film franchise painting, from the man who bought you Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones in 2023. Come on, you have to at least love the original film. 

#30x30DirectWatercolor

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. 

#30x30DirectWatercolor

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 -

#30x30DirectWatercolor

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. 

#30x30DirectWatercolor

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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