30x30 Direct commences!

I did the #30x30DirectWatercolor challenge last year and enjoyed it, but I think I will get even more out of it this year, because A. I'm willing to be more experimental, and B. I'm semi-retired (no more full-time job), so I actually have time to consider what I will paint each day, and the leisure to do so, most days. I happened to have a busy day planned for June 1, so I did a quick little still life topic for the first day, but for the rest I hope to intersperse some portrait work and some landscapes, since those are both bigger challenges to me than the kinds of things I painted last year (mostly still life, although I did do a picture of Notre Dame and one of Susan's dog!).

I had pinched the blooming tops off my basil plant in the morning on Friday, so that it would continue to grow bigger instead of going to seed, and stuffed them into this little pink glass mug, and it interested me to try to capture the transparent glass with the basil behind it. It's a little clumsy here and there, but I was happy enough with it.

For Day Two, I attempted a portrait. I've been painting a bunch of those lately (see below), but with an ink drawing to start, followed by detailed watercolor. This time I tried to concentrate only on shapes, and chose to paint Colleen because her coloring and hair are all close to one another in tone (she's a freckly redhead), so I could use just one color of paint, in various shades of rust, in pale and darker tones, and still have it look like her. (I attempted freckles at first, but it was just too much, so I washed out most of them and hoped for the implication to remain.) I want to try more of these, with a looser feel and more spontaneous colors that don't necessarily conform to reality! But this was my experiment, to see if I could capture a reasonable likeness without my ink pen.

If you are interested to see what others are doing, you can go to the Facebook page where the participants are posting their art. 

DAYS 1 & 2: COLLEEN, BASIL

#30x30DirectWatercolor2019