30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022

Direct Watercolour means exactly what it says on the tin. You paint direct onto your paper, without drawing out the design first. The 30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge was conceived by urban sketching guru Marc Taro Holmes and friends. Every June the challenge is to paint 30 direct watercolours within the 30 says of June. I've completed the challenge several times, the first being 2018.

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2018

So where do you actually start? Bear in mind that at this time I didn't hardly ever use watercolour. I would rather ink sketch than paint and when I did paint my preferred medium was acrylic. So the way I fulfilled the challenge was just to try to produce something - anything. We all have to start somewhere, so while I acknowledge the crudeness and simplicity of most of these, I'm not embarrassed. This was the start of a journey. On this first time I did actually paint more than 30. A case of quantity over quality. Compare this set with the 2022 set at the end.

This is one of my favourites of the 2018 set. I think I could do better now, but it's showing a bit of potential

You could maybe say that this one is a little bit of a cheat because essentially I made a drawing using paint, rather than a painting.

This would have been okay if I had deliberately tried to be so colouful. but I was trying to be realistic. Cringe.

This is a favourite from this set.

The best of the whole set, produced on the last day of June 2018

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2019

I will admit that I didn't spend any huge amount of time thinking about how I could make them better than 2019. With the result that most of them are't noticeably better .

This was quite nice, and statues are something I do return to for the challenge

This was a rare occasion when I left off before overworking a picture

This has got quite a bit going for it if I could only have made the colours a bit bolder

Awful.

My favourite of this set,

I would have a better attempt at this in 22

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2021

I didn't take the challenge in 2020. Here's the 2021 paintings. Generally I was trying to make a better set than 2019, although I wasn't confident about how I was going to do it.

This is Northfields tube statio. After posting it on Facebook this was the first time I sold one of m 30x30 paintings

I was pleased with this one as I felt it showed some progress

This is what happens whe you use cheap ordinary plain file paper for watercolour. Ghastly

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2022

Here's the 2022 paintings. By ow my motivation had become a bit clearer in my mind. One of the reasons why I do the challenge is to try to get better at watercolours. Not all of the 2022 paintings were successful, but I personally think that they are a better set of paintings than 2021s, which are in their turn a better set than 2019 (I didn't undertake the challenge in 2020). Ironically I sold more of the 2021 set than the 2022, but I still think they were closer to wat I wanted to achieve. See what you think.

1) Abandoned Railway Station

2) Shaken, not shtirred

3) Copy of a Pat Katz Original

4) Toulouse Lautrec

5) Margam Castle, Port Talbot

6) Horse racing

7) Caernarvon Castle

8) Long John Silver

9) Seaside Ice Cream

Copy of Carme Megam Prat original collage of Charlie Chaplin

11) Lighthouse. Once again, crap cheap paper proves my undoing.

12) Copy of Alain Bedard Painting

13) Old Scottish Fisherman. I admit that the face isn't good. Otherwise I was so pleased with this as a painting. My ancestors were from the Scottish fishing village called Panbride.