#30×30, 2025, Day 01: Out of the Gates!

Hey hey! So it begins again! Thirty days of Watercolor! (or whatever :) The annual challenge; can I do anything besides eating and sleeping for thirty days in a row? I don’t know! Lets find out!

So: #30x30DirectWatercolor > Why did we start this thing in the first place?

I am VERY easily distracted, and VERY easily addicted to pointless things; doom scrolling, video games, you know – distractions.

I’m always looking for ways to trick my brain to stay on track; to be temporarily addicted to painting, instead of something less productive. (?) Whatever that means :) Winter always does me in – I think I have seasonal affective disorder. My productivity plummets every Nov/Dec and doesn’t pick up again till March/April.

So this is my annual fresh start for the upcoming summer :)

Here are some tips I’m going to be employing this year:

• Work small: These studies are 4×4″. I love the speed of working small, and the ease of working on more than one piece at a time. (I drew three-up at the same time using some offcuts I had lying around). Watercolor is very suited to working fast (faster you go, the more the color mixes on the paper) and multi-tasking (switch paintings while one dries).
  
  Also; a small footprint allows you to;
  
• Leave your workstation set up: You need a space, anywhere you can leave your stuff laying out, so you can walk up to your desk, blast down a painting, and just get up and walk away. This is how you do one before work, and three before bed, and not be blocked by the friction of getting your paints out or the time-debt of cleaning up at the end of the night.
  
  In the past I’ve put a tiny desk in a closet, used a workbench in a garage, moved a bookshelf shelf three out from the a wall to make a hidden room. These days we just don’t have a dining room. That’s my studio instead.

• Work in series: If you can stick to a theme you can just keep rolling; instead of having to think of a new idea. Again – less friction – less thinking in between you and the next piece.
  
• Always be looking, Always be archiving: I do a lot of phone scrolling (don’t we all?) These landscapes are mostly based on travel influencers videos. (I take a lot of random screenshots). When you’re going around your city you can be continually snapping compositions. The real trick is: Don’t just save to your camera roll. Actively sort things into folders. Stay on top of your reference. Don’t ever be searching for inspiration. It should be patiently waiting for you.

• Have big plans: Part of the motivation here is just warming up with watercolor, and part is just showing off online (hey its motivation!) but also; I’m doing these 4×4″s now, with the hopes of enlarging the best ones later. Look at them small, and imagine them wall sized!
  
  One of my medium term goals is developing a way to keep my mark making consistent in scale from 4 inches, up to 4 feet.

OK! Starting this thing off with a bang! I hope to see you guys over on Vivify – I’ll head over there now and cross post this stuff :)