Kolbie Blume’s 10-Day Painting the Wilderness Challenge, Redux

Along with my watercolor discord, I decided to redo Kolbie Blume’s 10-Day Painting the Wilderness challenge from 2021, the same challenge that I found super valuable in helping me get into watercolor in the first place 3 years ago!

It’s fun to read back to my original post and see how much this challenge meant to me the first time. Doing it again reminded me of that excitement – the anticipation and joy of listening to those first strains of the video theme song and the ritual of taping my paper down each time. I followed the tutorial less this time than I did originally, opting more to do my own thing.

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Plein Airpril Begins

Inspired by Sarah Burns, I decided to try Plein Airpril this year! This is a month of daily plein air practice. I’ll be blogging a little differently this month, too! Normally I write posts ahead and schedule them to appear 3 times a week. In order to track my Plein Airpril progress, I’ve instead cleared the runway for April. Let’s see if I manage to do more realtime blogging of my progress. I expect that each entry will be shorter, but with more in-the-moment notes.

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Blues and Browns Only

While Johnny Thomas’ sky challenge is still ongoing – I dip in and out occasionally – over the last six weeks he set the limited Blues & Browns Only challenge (#bluesandbrownsonly), painting a series of six reference photos using only shades of blue and earth tones.

I was eager to take on this challenge to stretch myself to see the chromaticity in earth tones. Historically I’ve preferred brighter colors, but my appreciation for more subtle colors has been trending slowly upward. Could this challenge convince me to finally become an earth color person?

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Nature Spot Challenge, January 2024

Lisa Spangler (@sideoats) ran the Nature Spot Challenge a second time in January 2024, and I participated again! I really enjoyed the first Nature Spot Challenge last year, so I was pleased to do it again. I managed to do one every day for the first two weeks of the month, but in the back … Read more

#magrish_challenge_sky 2023 (+2022!)

For the last three years, one of my favorite sky painters, Maria Smirnova (@magrish on Instagram), has posted a three-week challenge at the end of November (#magrish_challenge_sky). Each week, she posts a black-and-white sky photo, and you’re invited to paint it in any colors you wish. I joined for the first time last year, and I participated this year as well.

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More #skieswithjt

The #skieswithjt challenge continued through August and September! The notes from the later paintings are more detailed because I did them in realtime, where the others I filled in later. (It’s worth noting that I like paintings better after time has passed!)

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