First day exercises. I used a #2 Da Vinci Casaneo quill brush, a 1/4" Silver Black Velvet dagger brush, and a Daler Rowney rigger (#1 I think). These are my 3 favorite types of brush and I use them all the time.

I started out doing the exercises in a cheapie WC sketchbook. I like to keep these exercises in sketchbooks as notes for future reference. But I wasn't getting great results with that paper, so I switched over to cotton cold press sheets.

Sketchbook:

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 1 - student project

The back, middle and front grips were familiar to me, but the overhand grip used on the side was new - love it!

Part one on paper (same exercises):

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 2 - student project

Part two paper:

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 3 - student project

I wasn't too happy with my landscape exercise - by the time I got to it I was rushing because I had to start making dinner. :-D I did manage to wait for my first (variegated) wash to dry before adding the background trees, but didn't let those dry enough before adding the foreground trees.

I have been working a lot on tea-honey-milk for the last couple months and feel I'm getting a good handle on that. Also pretty comfortable with my brushwork. The area in which I need the most work is water control, both in the brush and on the paper. I realized that I don't do the "tap tap" on towel before going to the paper with a full brush, and even though I kept reminding myself, I STILL couldn't remember! Work in progress!

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Day 2: I had some trouble with my honey into wet in both tries. I don't use this paper often so I find I don't have a good understanding of how it takes water.

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 4 - student project

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Day 3: I thought my first wash was half way dry but I realized once I put the second layer on that I'd misjudged it by a lot! Did a better job on the second try. I'm still getting more bleeding than I'd like when I add honey to the semi-wet areas (windows at left of building).

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 5 - student project

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Day 4: Wet in dry. This is my second attempt at this - I didn't wait long enough the first time (again!!); thought it was dry but: floof!

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 6 - student project

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Day 5: Wet in dry, advanced. I did this one two times, both using a Princeton Neptune script liner #6 and a rigger #1 for the roof details. On both of them, after the first layer dried I felt like the many colors were distracting and wasn't sure I liked it. But once I added in the details, it looked great! On the second one, I finally was able to place a honey wash on top of the damp layer without getting feathering. I decided to play with some white gouache on the second one too just for fun. :-)

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 7 - student project

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 8 - student project

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Day 6: Simple value gradation study. Turns out it's not so simple! I had a hard time with this one! I had trouble getting my darks as dark as I wanted them to be.

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 9 - student project

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 10 - student project

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Day 7: Complex value gradation wash. I had trouble with this one too. I'm still having a hard time gauging the amount of water I need with this paper. I'm going to practice this one further and hope it clicks in the future. I thought I had done a wet enough wash on the center section, but when I went back to do the sides it had started to dry so I got some intense backruns. I also struggled with creating a cityscape from imagination, so when I try these again I will look for some reference photos.

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 11 - student project __________________________________________________________________

Day 8: Simple wet in dry rose. I have painted a lot of flowers over the last few years so this one was nice and familiar. I even managed to wait until each wash was dry before adding the next!

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 12 - student project

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Day 9: Wet in wet rose. Catching up after several days away. I really need to clean my palette.

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 13 - student project

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Day 10: Hybrid wash. Cleaned my palette :-)

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 14 - student project

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Day 11: Redo with wash intent. This is a redo of an urban sketch I did about a month ago. I wanted to try out the scene in a much looser style. I shifted the small building to the left a bit to include some of the tall buildings in the background and more of the trees.

Original sketch:

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 15 - student project

Today's redo:

first wash - I was pleased that I managed to get all my base colors wet enough that I didn't get any hard edges here, but displeased that I did not get the amount of variegation I was trying for. Before starting, I made a thumbnail color plan and mixed up all the colors I needed so I could keep the wet in wet going. I also added a bit more sienna on the left edge of the building when the wash was almost dry, to define the edge a little. I was pleased that wash came out as I'd intended - defined on the left with a little blooming on the right.

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 16 - student project

second and third washes:

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 17 - student project

I had trouble with getting my greens dark enough. I'm trying to use up some student grade green and I think that was a mistake - the greens ended up being thick and chalky. The greens in the original sketch are much nicer I think because they were mixed from professional paint. I realized after the fact that I could have done some scraping to break up that dark area. I really liked using the side of the dagger brush to get some dry strokes - love the texture.

Overall, I'm pleased with what I did today because even though it's not my greatest painting, I learned some things, and it is fun to see the same scene in two very different styles. It's still not as loose as I'd like it to be, but not too bad for a first go!

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Day 12: Two-layer magic. I was pretty happy with my first wash, although it could have been a little lighter. I did manage to get enough water in there to avoid hard edges.

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 18 - student project

Next layer, I did not add enough variegation. My focus was on painting loosely - it's a lot to keep in mind all at once! I would still like to go looser; baby steps.

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 19 - student project

At the end I felt like I didn't have as much shadow as I wanted so I went back in with a couple quick swipes, but they picked up some of the paint below. :-( Should have left it alone!

10 Day Watercolor Challenge - image 20 - student project

Notes to self: add in more variegation - a different bit of color with each pass of the brush; pay attention to dampness of paper; maybe avoid straight-on views - corners give more opportunity for shade/shadow.

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Gail Dokucu

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