I started watercolor in January 2020, after years of acrylic painting. It is such a wonderful medium, but I can't express how out of my comfort zone this challenge is. I tried a little portrait, tons of flowers and animals. Landscapes, houses, reality is hard for an abstract painter. My expectations are too high, I may be too hard on myself.

I plan on accepting not to be happy with some of these landscapes, and accepting that is doesn't come naturally to me. I plan on being consistent and allowing me to be proud of myself at the end!

Let's do this!!

Day 1 - Not happy with the Mountains, because of the layers of darker colors... 30-D Watercolor challenge - image 1 - student project

Day 2 - Bought a wash brush, makes a big difference! Hard to make the dry brush strokes.

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 2 - student project

Day 3 - My color is always really watery, but overall, happier with this one! :)

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 3 - student project

Day 4 and 5 - oh well, I keep finding it really hard. Maybe the paper and colors are not helping, but I definitely need more practice with these landscapes. I also was too quick to paint, and didn't check if my colors would be muddy when mixing them, which happen day 5... What a shame. Still, day 5 is my favorite so far!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 4 - student project

Day 6 - Oh how hard this simple painting was!! I could get the colors to blend properly...

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 5 - student project

Day 7 - I was happy about my palm trees, I used less pressure and i achieve fine lines where I had troubles before! Yeah me! Plus, the higher clouds are looking good, I think I understand what makes the other one not working, so it's a step in the right direction!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 6 - student project

Day 8 - Northern lights fail... I could get my countertop to move like Zaneena's cardboard! hahahaha I will definitly buy something moveable to tape down my sheet of paper! ;) Otherwise, I could nail the payne's grey dry strokes on day 2, but it definitly worked out better with the white on Day 8! wout, wout!!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 7 - student project

Day 9 has been horrible. I just bought Canson paper, but didn't use the right amount of water for everything to blend properly. I will surely try again and let you know how it goes! 30-D Watercolor challenge - image 8 - student project

Day 10 Was even more terrible than day 9, who would have known! ;) I started off with a painting my 4-yo could have achieve, and tried skies until it was better, then I have redone it. You'll see the progress below!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 9 - student project

Day 11 - I tried 3 times, because my colors weren't blending well together, it was all muddy, I should've try beforehand... haha This is my third try, with some trees... The sky was looking so good, and the more I added colors and clouds, less it was looking like Zaneena's! haha I am gonna buy this Canson Heritage paper, and try those skies again!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 11 - student project

Day 12 - Ouf, not perfect, but a nice break from my skies frustrations! haha Thank you for that, Z. ! I am looking forward to try my hand with a 100% cotton paper. :D

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 12 - student project

Here, I tried the northern sky again, when I switch from Strathmore paper to Canson XL paper. The Canson paper react better then the other brand for wet on wet. This is more of my style, with a little help from Z's technique! 30-D Watercolor challenge - image 13 - student project

Day 13 - Wooooooah. I bought Canson Heritage, as Zaneena use it and this makes all the difference! :D Pretty happy about this one! I also bought Rose of Ultramarine, what a beautiful color!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 14 - student project

Day 14 - It was pleasant, just pleasant to do it, and be confident i would be able to paint something great for a change! haha Beautiful greens and blues, I do love these colors!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 15 - student project

Day 15 & 16 - I am late, so I did 2 tonight, and probably two tomorrow to make up for the days I skipped this weekend because of friends and family (I had so much fun filling my batteries, and looked everywhere seeing skies and mountains I could paint!) I have to say I need more time to process how the water reacts. It's hard to have just enough! I keep having blooms, or strokes that doesn't blend that much because it's already dry... But still, I feel a progress in my abilities and enjoy it very much! You will notice I did a color test for the first time tonight! haha

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 16 - student project

Day 17 - I am very late again... I was overload with work and the kids, and couldn't paint that late in the night! haha So day 17. I am not a red-orange person. Those colors are far from habitual palette. It turned out ok, but I still have very much to learn about the consistency of the paint and the water involved to manage those beautiful dramatic skies...

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 17 - student project

Day 18 - Wow, so many things went wrong! I nailed the sky at first, like, I was reeaaally happy, it looked professional to me! haha But oups, I made a mess of those snowy mountain, probably because I was too confident after day 16. I had a lot of trouble with the lake as well. The beautiful reflection on the lake from the green mountain didn't turn out as planned, it spreaded out in the wet background a lot... Well, I am still happy with the result, and learn tons from it!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 18 - student project

Day 19 - Another orangy sunset. I was lazy and I just realized I forgot the shadows on the ground! I didn't want to do that many trees, and there was a serene feel about the landscape as I was painting. So I went for a swing instead. :)

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 19 - student project

Day 20 - It made my heart so happy to paint this night sky! I have always been drawn to these kind of paintings without ever trying it out for myself, so I am glad of the outcome! Day 20 was a treat for me! I used my art philosophy metallic palette for the milky way, and I am ecstatic about the result, I like how magical just a bit of a shiny color can make!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 20 - student project

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 21 - student project

Day 21 - This one was fun too. Making the cliff was super exciting!!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 22 - student project

Day 22 - Almost caught up on the challenge! It was super easy but a bit challenging to achieve the look with the complementary colors without having them blend into each other.

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 23 - student project

Day 23 - I really have a problem with adding color onto a wet background. I know there's something wrong with my water ratio somewhere, but I can't seem to get it right!! So, here's day 23, with a not very satisfying sky...

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 24 - student project

Day 24 - I really had to let go of my fear of messing things up. It worked out! :) And the clouds are not that bad for once! :D

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 25 - student project

Day 25 - It was interesting, but I overworked it, and unfortunately dropped water in the turquoise part and tried to cover it up to salvage it... I feel like I can now take a little liberty in the paintings and not do them exactly as shown by Z, since by now we have practice most of the techniques multiple times. I think it's a token of how well we learned doing the challenge!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 26 - student project

Day 26 - I am late, and I was afraid to paint this one as it is so far from the colors I like. But I am actually really pleased with it! :)

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 27 - student project

Day 27 - I love green, it was fun to do and I appreciate how we learned layering for depth with this one!

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 28 - student project

Day 28 - Almost done, I have to find time for the last two paintings. Consistency is key to improve, but consistency in a pandemic with kids and a full-time job is a little harder. I really loved this journey though.. Zaneena is such a good teacher, her explanations are really clear and it's up to us to achieve a good result with all the tips she is sharing.

30-D Watercolor challenge - image 29 - student project

Axelle Hubert

Colors can lift up my mood in seconds!

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