All Paint: No Pencil, No Pen
Creations by the Art Toolkit team, inspired by the annual 30x30 Direct Watercolor Challenge.
By The Art Toolkit Team
On a blustery afternoon in June, everyone in the office headed outside to sketch together for a little break. The Direct Watercolor Challenge, an annual month-long event in June, is underway, so we thought we’d give it a whirl as a team!
We set a timer for ten minutes and sketched our surrounds, from Victorian buildings and docks to water views and patio chairs.
Production Assistant Lena Valentine carried on with the Direct Watercolor Challenge from her kitchen, painting grapes and bananas on her countertop! For both pieces, she painted in the fruit first, followed by a background where she considered contrasting colors to make the fruit pop.
Lena explored layering paint for her bunch of grapes: “You can see a little bit of the first layer of paint, Quinacridone Rose, poking through, then a purple, and I finished with a blue on top.”
Outside of the Direct Watercolor Challenge, Lena typically uses pencil, then paint, and finishes with colored pen to frame her subjects, making them more distinctive.
Thank you to our Tuesday team at the shop for dashing outside in the wind and sharing a little sketch session together. We invite you to take a short break, look out at the land or the city and capture a moment with a group or for yourself!
