I have now successfully completed the World Watercolor Month challenge of doing some kind of watercolor painting each day of July. I have had a tremendous amount of fun and improved my skills and confidence. Thank you all for your support and encouragement for my painting efforts throughout this month.
If you want to see the first four installments of my painting efforts this month, check out my previous postings ‘More fun with watercolor‘, ‘World Watercolor Month 2020—part 2 ,’ ‘World Watercolor Month 2020—part 3,’ and Word Watercolor Month—part 4. This final installment highlights my painting efforts over the past nine days in reverse chronological order.
Day 31 and the prompt was “do-over,” so I had another go at painting a scene that I painted last November while in Paris of a lady with a red umbrella crossing a pedestrian bridge over the Seine that I had photographed. Here is a link to the posting ‘Playing with watercolor in Paris‘ that shows the November version of the painting, and a link to the post ‘A few more umbrellas in Paris‘ that shows the photo on which the paintings were based.
Day 30 and the prompt was “pose.” I decided to be my own model and painted a version of the photo that has been my profile image for a while. Thanks to my friend, Cindy Dyer, for taking such a good photo of me.
Day 29 and the prompt was “yesterday.” Immediately thinking of the Beatle song by that name, I was flooded with memories of growing up in the 1960’s, so I did a colorful little painting reminiscent of a tie-dyed t-shirt as a kind of homage to that period in my life.
Day 28 and the prompt was “complementary.” Purple and yellow are complementary colors, so I decided to paint a field of imaginary wildflowers in those colors. I made no attempt at realism or nuance in the painting—I just wanted to play with the paint.
Day 27 and the prompt was “shine,” so I painted a little landscape with the moon shining down on a grove of shadowy trees.
Day 26 and the prompt was “favorite song.” I remembered that one of my parents’ favorite hymns was “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” so I painted a little sparrow. The final line of the wonderful hymn is, “His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.”
Day 25 and the prompt was “sharp.” I decided to paint a version of a photo I had previously taken of a dragonfly that had chosen a precarious perch on a thorny vine.
Day 24 and the prompt was “abundance,” so I did a tiny painting (3×3 in/76 x 76 mm) of a field full of bright red poppies following a YouTube tutorial by Ellen Crimi-Trent (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDC7Aojxm4&t=83s). It’s fun to paint something so small, where details are only suggested.
Day 23 and the prompt was “alone,” so I painted a solitary bird perched amidst some blossoms. It kind of looks like a cross between a chickadee and an American Robin. I later learned that the bird looks to be a Varied Tit, a bird found in the Far East. I had loosely followed a YouTube tutorial that did not identify the bird (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtlLzgfnQxw&t=1222s).
I plan to continue with my watercolor painting, having seen that frequent practice really helps, but it will probably be a while before I post any paintings here on the blog. Thanks again for your support and indulgence as I have veered off my normal creative path.
We should be back to my regularly scheduled nature photography, though you have probably noticed that the photography continued without any discernible pause in July.
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Mike Powell 