30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2023 - 2025

If you haven't already looked at my page with my 30x30 sets from 2018 - 2022 you might like to since it will give you an idea of the journey I've been on with direct watercolour. 

30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2018 - 2022

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 in 2023.

30x30 Direct Watercolour 2023

1 - This was actually a challenge in the Facebook Sketching Every Day group. The prompt was to produce something inspired by the artist Carolyn Lord. This is my copy of her painting of Mont St. Michel.

2 - So, inspired by my copy of Carolyn Lord's 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 huge 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. For one thing the colours are too insipid, and the car needs to be far bigger.

5 I was disappointed with this one too. I like the sentiments of it, but the execution isn't quite there. 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. I was born and grew up in London. I  grew up loving the Tube  and thoroughly enjoyed making this.

8 Elephants. . . from the sublime to the ridiculous . . I had felt that 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. Apart from the subject matter there is nothing that I like about this picture

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 eve though it is number 12. Go figure.  This is Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue, inspired by the fact that I would be going to Copenhagen in the summer.

10 Hampton Court Palace. 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 2022 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. I also think that if the shadow beneath the van had been dark blue it would have made it zing a bit more

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 after work one evening 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 so I felt it was worth a try. I  made the background fuzzy like this to try to suggest speed. Worth a try but not all that successful on the 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. The last time I did not complete the challenge was 2020 and that was because I didn't even start it. In 2023 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 in 2024. 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 the challenge properly but my heart, I guess, was not really in it. If I had managed to do 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 of days I gave up after 8. Here they are.

1

2

3 By rights this painting of early 20th century traffic on Hammersmith Bridge in London should have been a good subject for me. Yet the whole thing looks lumpy and uninspired.

4Again, a good subject, but a painting that manages to be less than the sum of it's parts. The shadows on the figures are too thick and lack subtlety. I should have dulled down the brickwork too.

5I made the mistake of using cheap paper for some of the paintings I made in this set. This really isn't good.

6 When I  was a week in I decided to switch to smaller pictures since I seemed to be getting worse and worse with the gigger ones. As you can see, it didn't help.

7 Okay, so this at least isn't bad.

8 This is the point a which I gave up. It's not all that bad, but clearly in June 2024 I was not procing stuff that gave me  any satisfaction.  

2025

So to 2025. The 30x30 challenge is not a competition, but I can't help thinking of it as a competition against myself. For me a lot of the motivation is trying to make better work than before. One of the really demotivating things about 24 was being stuck in a rut where I knew that my work was not approaching the standard I had reached in 2023, but not having a clue how to make it any better. So before starting 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. (Ironically I broke my left shoulder on the penultimate day of May, which provided me with plenty of time for painting. Luckily I am right handed)

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

I reckoned that if I could do all these things then the quality would hopefully take care of itself. 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. Also the shading looks like what I was doing in the previous year. 

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 but 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. I really admire what I see other painters do with watercolour combining misty buildings with dark silhouettes and this was my attempt at something of that ilk. 

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

13 Back on the 300 gsm watercolour paper. My reference photo has the car blue, but I love to see a red Morgan 3 wheeler so that's what I've painted. I know that things are going well when I can paint something like this.

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. I think it's close but no cigar

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. This is better than some similar pictures from years ago where I even sketched the design on paper first.

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. It's a lot better than the 2023 vintage.

19  Okay, so, by the end of Saturday 14^th I had made 16 pictures in total, which put me two pictures or 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 17 on the evening of the 16th. Making picture 18 on the morning of the 17th 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 had to sleep in an upright position and for the last three nights I had slept very poorly. I pushed myself, remembering that this made 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.

21 On the previous painting – the Betjeman statue – I used my last piece of proper A4 300 gsm watercolour paper. I ordered a new pad from Amazon, but it had not arrived by the time I wanted to start, so I took a gamble. I used a piece of ordinary A5 150 gsm sketching paper. It worked out better than I hoped, for I know that the colours can look a bit muted on this sort of paper. The North American bison is a really interesting animal. Extensive hunting and slaughter of the bison population of the USA meant that a population numbering tens of millions in 1800 had dwindled to under 1100 by 1890. Since then efforts of conservationists have been outstandingly successful. There are estimated 150,000 bison today and they are no longer on the endangered list.

22 I was so happy with my bison painting that I decided to start another painting on the evening of the same day – Thursday 19^th June. I didn’t start until much later than I normally would because it wasn’t until later in the day that my new pad of watercolour paper was delivered. So, this building is the Dock Hotel in Port Talbot. After marrying a local girl I moved to Port Talbot from London in 1986. Port Talbot, an important industrial town, did have many fine Victorian and Edwardian buildings but a lot of them were swept away in a large scale redevelopment of the centre of town in the early 1970s. I did see this building before it was demolished in 1989 – a crying shame in my opinion. 

23 Now, what with me being off work with a broken shoulder, it being the weekend shouldn’t have made any great difference. However I always feel that I should be more productive during the challenge at the weekends, so on Saturday 21^st I set out to make another 2 pictures. Since I was already 2 ahead of schedule then this would put me 3 ahead. The first one shows London’s Crystal Palace just after the disastrous fire in 1936. The Crystal Palace was originally built in Hyde Park in London to house the 1851 Great Exhibition. After the exhibition the building was bought by a group of businessmen and transported to Sydenham in South London where it was rebuilt as part of a large scale Victorian tourist attraction. In 1936 a devastating fire consumed the building. What was left after the fire was irreparable and demolition followed, When I invent my time machine the first visit will be to the medieval London Bridge and the second will be to the Crystal Palace. 

24  Cards on the table, this is not an original work. It’s a copy of a painting of Budapest I found on the internet. I found it on Reddit, but all I could find out about the artist was the artist’s username, Matway. Sometimes you can learn a lot from trying to reproduce another artist’s work and I think that this was one of those times. Now, when I can produce something like this without having to copy anyone else’s, then I’ll know I’m getting somewhere. 

25  Up until Sunday 22^nd June I had painted every day during the challenge, although this does not mean that I completed a painting every day. However on the Sunday I wasn’t at all well with a bad stomach. Well Ifelt on the mend on the 23^rd. Having lost the day on the Sunday I was still two pictures ahead of schedule. In 2023 I made a couple of pictures based on films. Now, we all have films we love which aren’t necessarily great films and one of mine is Cliffhanger. I think it’s a great, although at times rather silly, action movie, and if it’s on the telly then that’s it, I’m settling down to watch it. I did mention previously about how I’m afraid one of these last few pictures will be rubbish and spoil the set. Well this one is fine, thankfully.

26  I  did actually begin this one before the Cliffhanger picture. It’s my (very inferior) copy of a painting by my favourite watercolour artist, Thomas Schaller. This shows the aerial tramway from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island in New York City. I rode on this in 2024, and the view on the ride back to Manhattan is out of this world. I think that if you pressed me for a definitive answer to the question – apart from London – which is the favourite city you have ever visited – I would say New York. As I said with number 24, I do think I learned quite a bit from trying this. If it encourages anyone to go and have a look at the original, the that’s a real bonus. 

27 So I spent about two hours on painting 27 on Tuesday and finished it by mid-morning on Wednesday. The First World War and in particular the great tragedy of it has fascinated me for a long time. The tank was originally suggested by Winston Churchill and was first used in the Battle of the Somme. Being a member of a tank crew was one of the most hazardous things one could be at that time. There’s no official figures, but it’s reckoned that the average life expectancy of a member of a tank crew was probably less than 6 weeks.

28 My plan was to hedge against inertia after finishing painting 27 was to start all 3 of the last 3 paintings. I’ve already selected the subjects and each of them were going to require a background painted wet on wet. So I could do one, put it to one side to dry, do another and so on. Now, one of the last 3 is going to be a view of Venice and that was the one I was going to paint first. However at the last minute I changed my mind and decided to continue with another painting of the Roosevelt Island aerial tramway. This is not a copy of anyone else’s painting. It shows the previous type of car, which were replaced a couple of years ago.

29  I was really delighted with the background I had painted for this painting of Venice the day before. It had dried beautifully. The plan with this one was to fight my natural tendency, and try to stay quite loose an not obsess over detail. I’m quite pleased – I think that I’ve gone some way towards what I was trying to do, and let’s not forget that the challenge is a journey. Above other things it did give me a lot of pleasure painting this too, which is kind of the point. 

30 –This is a response to a photo prompt for the Facebook Sketching Every Day group for the 30^th. I wouldn’t say I think it’s the best painting of the set but it will do. So that is it. The challenge is complete. I won’t try to go into detail on my thoughts and feelings about the experience – that will come later. For now I will just say that I have enjoyed it immensely .