At the beginning of this month, I came across the World Watercolor Month challenge on Instagram. The challenge was to paint 31 watercolors, one for each of the 31 days of July. I’ve painted and posted a daily watercolor all month (the final post is tomorrow) and it’s been good for my art practice and a fun experience.
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| Prompt: Fragment, World Watercolor Month, July 2023 Watercolor, Posca paint marker and Micron pen. |
There were 31 daily prompts for Challenge participants to respond to in their watercolor. The prompts were optional, but a good opportunity to stretch one’s imagination. These are my personal favorites of the watercolor compositions I painted and the prompts that inspired them.
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| Prompt: Recycle |
Above: I “recycled” motifs from two previous compositions–the larger circles and the smaller pebbles.
Below: Overlapping rings in warm and cool tones of "aubergine."
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| Prompt: Aubergine |
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| Prompt: Detour |
Above: Watercolor combined with slow drawing. This one, called "Detour," seemed to be a favorite of my IG and Facebook viewers.
Below: A daily practice is "valuable" in developing skills and strengthening creativity and the thought process. These watercolor botanicals will be used as fodder for art journaling projects.
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| Prompt: Valuable |
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| Prompt: Mechanism |
Above: The watercolor shapes in the background is a "mechanism"{ for slow drawing and mark making in the foreground. This composition illustrates the concept of layers.
Below: At the urging of an artist friend to explore these darker, moodier colors, I did a few compositions using a palette of dark blues, indigo and near-black watercolors. Details were added with a white Posca paint pen and a Micron pen. The second of the series in this color palette is shown above, in Fragment.
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| Prompt: Risky |
Make Nine finish #7
This is the first Challenge I’ve done with the watercolor medium. The timeframe of 31 days was achievable, the daily practice was good for me, and the prompts were interesting and provided a path for the compositions.
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| Make Nine 2023: Online Challenge prompt |
I'm counting this Watercolor Challenge as fulfilment of my Make Nine 2023 "Online Challenge" prompt.
