30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2023 - 2025

 2022 was the third time I  managed to complete the 30x30. I thought that a few of the paintings I produced then were as good as they might have been even if I had drawn the designs first. The best ones were complete paintings rather than just an isolated figure or object, so that was what I was going to try to paint now.

1 - This was actually a challenge in the Facebook Sketching Every Day group. I forget the name of the artist whose work we were asked to copy.

2 - So, inspired by my copy of Mont St. Michel I tried to paint St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall in a similar style. S'okay.

3 -London's Blackfriar's Bridge. I have sold prints of this one, so it must be okay.

4 This is a disappointment. One of the finest paintings from 22 was an old formula 1 car. I don't know why but I just couldn't seem to make anything of it in 23.

5 I was disappointed with this one too. The dog is quite good, and none of it is terrible, but I wanted to do something better. The foliage in the foreground to the left could have been quite a bit better.

6 American tow truck. Again, it's okay but no better than okay. Had I made the truck bigger then I could have given it more detail and definition possibly.

7 Thank goodness I was able to end the first week with something decent - an old 1938 stock tube train in modern Southgate tube station. I've since sold the original and prints of this. 

8 Elephants. . . from the sublime . . . I felt the force was with me on the previous painting. Lord knows, it deserted me for this one. The more I worked on it the worse it got.

9 - Clevedon Pier Sunset. Thankfully I followed the terrible elephants immediately with this. I was pretty pleased, although the reflections in the water aren't great.

12 - Yeah - the page insists on putting this one up here. This is Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue, inspired by the fact that I would be going to Copenhagen in the summer.

10 The last picture of what had been a mammoth weekend. The brickwork took hours. The clock is wonky and the building a little out of true. My daughter - who is fascinated by the Tudors - still wanted it.

11 A little red corvette. I do love an original Chevrolet Corvette. Considering that I painted this in a couple of hours one evening after work, I was delighted with how well it came out.

13 In 22 I painted Tower Bridge on a misty day. I tried hard to do a better picture in 23. I'd say thus is better than the previous year's but it's still not quite there. 

14 Oast House. I have family in Kent, and so I've seen quite a few oast houses like this in my time, and I love 'em. I'm very glad that I went colourful with this. The proportions aren't quite there yet, but at least it's showing the way.

15 - Halfway through, and here's something I thought was as good as my best work from 22. I love the colours and I think that the mail van is great. It's a shame the man's head is a little large, and the shed behind is off true.

16 - It's a shame I got the perspective wrong on the signal box. Still, I am pleased with the way that I used negative space for tree trunks and branches.

17 Brecon Mountain Railway. For my birthday my daughter and son in law, Jess and Dan, took me for a lovely trip on the Brecon Mountain Railway. As for the painting, the muntainside is fine, the loco is okay, but the ground and the rails - not great.

18 - Another sunset painted on a Sunday. This one has a sailing ship in it. I like the sea very much here - the lines on the sails are a bit too thick

19 American Civil War. It's a subject that has fascinated me ever since I first saw Ken Burns' epic documentary series. As for the painting, it was done in an evening after work. I wish the faces were a bit more distinct, but I'm very happy with the trees behind.

20 - Boy on a dolphin statue by Sir David Wynne. One of my favourite pieces of public art in London. The London one is on the north bank of the Thames and when I used to cycle back to Uni in New Cross after a weekend home in Ealing I always looked forward to riding past it. This was deliberately chosen as a quick evening subject.

21 Anthony 'Odin' Hopkins - By now I felt that the force was with me, and on a whim I made this portrait . I live in Port Talbot and Sir Anthony is one of the town's favourite sons. I was delighted with this result.

22 - Gone to the dogs. I'd painted horse races before but not greyhounds. I was delighted with this, and pleased with myself for including the dirt from the track being kicked up

23 BSA. When your confidence is high you feel you can do anything. I'm not into motorbikes, but they're a vehicle I've never painted before. I  made the background fuzzy like this to try to suggest speed. Worth a try but not all that successful on tthe speed angle. I did sell it, though.

24 Parisian porter. Close to what I was trying but not quite there. Not sure why she did but my Mother in Law took a bit of a shine to it and offered to buy it. No, of course I gave it to her for nothing. She's had it framed.

25 Who you gonna call - Inspired by the success of the Odin painting I made this. Ghostbusters was my son's favourite film. Very occasionally you'll look at your work and think - this is about as good as I can do. It happened to me with this one. 

26 - Unigate milk float. When I was a kid I earned pocket money by helping a milkman at the weekends, although this was in a local West London dairy and not Unigate.

27 - Stan and Ollie- oh, so close. Instantly recognisable, but Ollie's face isn't there. Almost, but not quite. It shows how far I had come in the challenge that I could be disappointed with this.

29 - Komodo dragon - my favourite reptile. not a great painting. The far cliffs are okay but it would have been better to make the dragon a lot bigger in the foreground

29 Show jumping - I do like painting horses. The foliage is a little bit much, but it's okay.

30 - Indiana Jones. More than James Bond, or Star Wars or  practically any other film franchise I love Indiana Jones. Now with this painting I had Indy's facial likeness quickly, then I lost it, then I got it back to an extent and that's where I stopped.

30x30 Challenge 2024

To this day I’m really not sure just what went wrong in 2024. In 23 I hadn’t started that strongly but the pictures got better, and I really enjoyed making them. I kept going with watercolour for some time afterwards too and felt more comfortable.

In hindsight I made a couple of bad decisions. To enable myself to keep up I decided to make some small pictures in an A6 book. Bad mistake – I had the time to do it properly but my heart, I guess, was not really in it. If I had managed a decent job with one of the larger pictures then maybe I might have kept going. But I didn’t and after missing a couple od days I gave up after 8. Here they are.

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2025

So to 2025. I promised myself this –

I would give myself however long was necessary to make each painting and not go chasing the schedule of at least 1 per day.

I would on the same hand be prepared to stop working on each painting when I had done what I could and not overwork it.

I would be more experimental with colours

I would be doing it for fun

So how did it go? Well, judge for yourself – here’s the paintings –

1 – Old Royal Mail Van. One of my 2023 favourites also had an old postman’s van, although the one in this is older. Really pleased – a lot of quite difficult elements in this

2 – Multicoloured warthog. I set out to be experimental here and I do rather like the results. One friend has already asked for a print

3 – Donkey. One of the weaker of the current crop. The actual modelling of the animal itself isn’t bad. I like the ghostly trees in the background. But I think I needed to be bolder with the colours. The overall effect is a little insipid.

4 – Bull – Nothing insipid about the colours with this one. It was a bit of a reaction to what happened with the donkey and although it’s maybe a little more crude, I think it’s far more successful.

5 – 1940’s London. My plan with this was to use some bigger blocks of colour than I normally do and less detail and more suggestion. I am bowled over by the result. Yeah, it’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a painting that turned out very close to the picture that was in my head when I started. If I could have made something like this last year then I might well have completed the challenge.

6 – Oslo tiger statue – a very different painting, much bolder. I think the modelling of the statue itself is really good. Although when I was in Oslo in January it was so dull and gloomy it was hard to believe that the place ever looked like this

7 – mid century grocer. It was time I made at least 1 picture where the focus is on a human figure. I have overworked the face, sadly. At least it’s not a complete wash out – I like the work on the shirt, for example.

8 – 30s/40’s Americana. While I was looking for reference photos for my grocer I came upon a photo showing this. I knew it would work as a subject if I could do my best to do it justice. Overall it took hours butt I’m stupidly pleased with the result

9 I find Americana a very fruitful source of inspiration, and likewise, I do enjoy portraying vehicles. 

10- This is the beautiful city of Chester. At the moment this is about as good as I can do. Really pleased with this.

11 Way out of my comfort zone here, This was made on the 10th, the second picture of the day, to put me one day ahead.

12 I made this in my Canson mixed media journal. This is maybe why it is a little sketchy. I like the way that the bus wheel came out.

13 My reference photo has the car blue, but I love to see a red Morgan 3 wheeler so that's what I've painted. 

14 What can I say ? I  love huge fossils of extinct animals and the museums where they can be found. This in an exhibit in the La Brea Tar Pits, a bucket list destination. I tried hard with this one but it's not there, I'm afraid.

15 Thames Barge. I don't often copy other people's work, not least because my copies so often suck compared to the originals. but I made an exception for this.

16  I do love a choo choo. This is an interesting one because although it looks about 90 years old it was actually built in the 21st century, reusing a lot of parts from older, scrapped engines

17  The Caffe Tramvaj in Wenceslas Square in Prague. I visited Prague in 2017 and this café is where I enjoyed a cappuccino. It’s one of my favourite cafes anywhere. Is it because the coffee is incredibly good, or very cheap, or because it has the most wonderful staff ? That would be no, no and no. But it’s an old tram! I read in the Autumn of 2024 that it had been shut down for not having a permit. It’s a shame. I am proud of this one – it took absolutely hours to complete.

18 British Grand Prix. Back in 2022 during the challenge month I managed to make a couple of pictures which were actually relatively close to what I saw in my head while I was making them, and one was of a 1950s formula 1 grand prix car . I was proud of it and did sell it. So come 2023 I  did another Grand Prix picture but this one was rubbish. Well, things have been going so well with my 2025 pictures that I decided to bite the bullet and have another go.

19  Okay, so, by the end of Saturday 14^th I had made 16 pictures in total, which put me two pictures,  two days ahead of schedule. Sunday 15th was my birthday and Father’s Day so I didn’t get started until the evening. As a result I only finished it yesterday. Making picture 18 this morning kept me a day ahead. However I still had enough oomph and had a plan for a ‘quick’ picture. I’m not sure which seaside pier this is, but I’ve always really liked piers. 10 minutes to do the sea wet on wet, then leave to dry. 10 minutes to do the sky then leave to dry. 10 minutes to do the light mountains and the dark mountains in the background. 15 minutes to paint the pier. Bish bosh, job’s a good’un.

20 I found it difficult to find the oomph to paint on the Wednesday – 18^th June. With my broken left shoulder I  have to sleep in an upright position and for the last three nights I had slept very poorly. I pushed myself, remembering that this makes the two thirds complete mark. It’s a stupid thing but I was feeling pressure now every time, because it had been going so well and I didn’t want to spoil it with rubbish. So this is a statue of former poet laureate, lover of Victorian architecture, and architectural conservationist. It’s situated in St. Pancras Station in London.