#30x30DirectWatercolor 2025: We are moving to Uma’s new site Vivify.ai!
Hey everyone! I expect some of you have been thinking about #30x30DirectWatercolor – and YES! It’s absolutely on for 2025!
This is will be the eighth year and I definitely want to keep it going. I feel, more than ever that the first-hand experience of a thirty-day marathon is valuable. This is the artist’s retreat, the travel workshop, or the mentorship that you’ve always wanted, but it’s free! and full of people who are here for the love of art! What could be better!
The big news this year is: we’re making a long anticipated move to Uma’s new social media site, Vivify.ai.
Some of you might not know, in addition to being an amazing artist and the co-founder of #30×30, Uma is also the founder of a tech platform for artists and art-instructors, Vivify.ai.
Vivify is perfect for our little art project. It allows sharing and commenting of images in a private online space, free of any ads, or algorithms controlling what you see. It’s perfect for the kind of community we are building. Global social networks are not created as tools for you to use. They exist to monopolize our time and our attention. In our Vivify Pod, there’s nothing in the way of the art, and the interaction.
You’ll be able to easily see everyone’s work in one place, and exchange comments and inspiration with everyone doing the marathon – everything we used to do in Facebook – but now it’s Uma’s own creation!
So please head over to the Vivify Pod; #30×30 Direct Watercolor 2025 whenever you have a chance. (A ‘pod’ is what they call a shared space on Vivify:) You can use your existing google profile with ‘one click’, or create a new Vivify account and password. Just hit the yellow button in the lower right corner to get started.
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Of course, I’ll still be blogging here, and we still encourage you to share on your personal socials. None of this is required to do the marathon. But we are very excited about this move to our own little slice of the internet!
Thanks everyone! The painting begins soon!
~Marc
Citizen Sketcher 
Sorry, but I’m not joining one more thing. If I can see it without an account, that’s fine. But I’m not signing up for any social media and if a WordPress or Google account isn’t good enough, then nope. I don’t do Facebook, WhatsApp, Xitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. If it’s not WordPress or Google then I won’t be participating. Obviously I would not be able to post either.
I’ll do the Doodlewash Watercolor month in July.
I absolutely hear you on social media fatigue; but you can certainly just use your google account. One click and maybe a ‘give Vivify permission’ and you’ll be in :)
signed up. Fingers crossed.
Hi Marc, This is great! I am glad you moved off of Facebook. Thanks for informing me about Vivify,ai. I dropped off Twitter years ago after only two weeks because it was so toxic. And I would love to ditch Facebook and Instagram but business wise I still have to be there. But I recently found a new happy place, Bluesky. I love the Vibe on Bluesky, it’s a happy up beat place and it is open source so I go into settings and pick the platforms that are most interesting to me, kind of like designer algorithms. I get to choose what goes in my feed, and I love that. The problem with Bluesky right now is it is too new. There are not many artists on it yet. So far I found Brenda Swenson and Thomas W Schaller, but they are the only ones that I know. I looked for you but have not found you, but the artists I have found are friendly and fun and some are doing some very interesting work. I have not found galleries or museums and only one watercolor association, Northwest Watercolor Association. My favorite find so far is @canadianpaintings.bsky.social. If you join Bluesky I am @sandydelehanty.bsky.social Good to hear from you, Sandy Delehanty Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad
Oh hey Sandy, long time! I’ve been thinking about Bluesky but of course procrastinating about it :) Thanks for the tips!
Hi Marc! Great incentive and I went ahead and signed up and marked it on my calendar. I’m not a techie so hoping the posting, etc will be straight forward. A question for you…If we can’t make the live video calls, will they be recorded? Peri
It will take a few minutes of tinkering on things to find where the buttons are -but it’s fairly normal = click to add a picture, type in your caption type stuff :) Feel free to just type questions if you need to and I’m sure people will answer! Also – I don’t know 100% but I am sure Uma is thinking about that -all the other ‘reports’ as they call it in the other workshops are there to view afterward.
oooh, exciting, it sounds like it will be more private and certainly with less distractions. I am looking forward to the challenge again – our artists retreat. It’s the most creative time of the year for me. Thank you both!
Great to hear you’re in for the jump! See you over there!
Hi Marc,
I met you last year at Viva Vida Gallery in Pointe-Claire and I said that I would send you an invitation to my show which is coming up on June 7 and 8.
It’s quite nice and very relaxed. Great potters.
Thanks,
Susan
Very Exciting! All signed up … I think :) I’m new to Vivify.
hey Marc I’m a little concerned about this as I see the .ai domain is a little place in the Caribbean that’s making a fortune out of AI technology 😳 Is this a legit site that 30×30 is actually moving to??
Yes! it’s ok :) Vivify is Uma Kelkar’s own creation – she’s paying for private hosting of the service, and all the programming is her and her partner. I don’t doubt there are other companies using the same providers, but I’m sure she’s looked at all the security issues? She’s putting quite a bit on the line for this and I know she’s smart about all this tech.
Hello Mark! This is probably a great place to move the challenge, but there’s a learning curve sorry if it sounds stupid – how/where do I post? I opened my account there (ANOTHER account with another password) – but I have no idea what to do next? And how to see other people’s work? Looks like another rabbit hole for my time…
Yes, I hear you! It is always a pain to dig into a new online service :) But I hope it wont take too long to get the hang of it. To start: in our Pod, < link there – scroll down past the description to the image tiles. There's a button on the left that says 'Upload Yours +'. Just click on that and you'll be prompted to find your photos you want to add. If you're adding one photo, you can type in a descripion. If you're adding a stack of photos, they will stay in the stack. You go in after he stack appears and add descriptions to any image inside the stack you want to talk about. Try that out and let me know if it works for you!