30 in 30 Collage and Wrap-Up

As a finale I've created a collage of all the animal portraits I completed for the "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Challenge. Oh, no....I think I'm missing one of the animals. I only have 29 in the collage. I wonder who escaped.

My thanks to Leslie Saeta for inspiring all the artists around the world who participated in the 30 Day  Challenge. Today on her blog the artists are all posting their collages, which is a good way to see a lot of the artwork at once. https://www.saetastudio.com/30-in-30-blog

So what can I tell you about the experience of doing the 30 painting challenge this year?

• I am glad I did a theme again this year. It took the worry about what the subject would be each day. It was fun doing animals, which I rarely did before. I did learn that most cats look more like each other than dogs do. lol I hope I didn't insult any cat lovers out there, but cat faces are fairly similar. Different dog breeds can look extremely different.
• I primarily use watercolors but I enjoyed adding some different materials to the paintings at times. I used combinations of watercolor pencils, ink, or even oil pastels to get the textures on the animals, although a few of the paintings were done in just watercolors.
• Even though I tried to keep a day ahead of the challenge, there were a few days that I was scrambling at the last minute to keep up. I should have tried keeping two days ahead...and I didn't really have anything that was a surprise pop up and take a day away from me.
• One of the special things about doing the challenge is seeing the work of the other artists that are participating. I didn't have enough time to see all the work this time, so I plan to go back and review each day. I like finding artists I like and visiting their blogs to see not only their work for the challenge, but their other paintings too. Sometimes I visit people several times and then realize I really like their work and begin to follow them. I did that with Nelvia McGrath at http://nelviasworkshopchallenges.blogspot.com and Beverly Shipko at http://www.beverlyshipko.com/blog-2/. 
• It was great to see other artists that I know who participated again this year (some for several years) like Val van der Poel at http://mellowoodgallery.blogspot.com, Jacqui Petersen at http://www.jacquipetersen.com and Sandy Sandy at http://www.sandysandyart.com.
• I do wish I had done more experimenting with other materials...maybe yupo paper for a few or masa paper. I tend to use the same materials, so it was a big stretch for me to add the materials I did use this time.
• Will I do the challenge again? Yes. I know Leslie organizes it in September also, but that is a time of year that I am too busy plein air painting. The challenge at this time of year comes at a time when the most I am doing outside would be small paintings or sketches from my car, so I have more time to participate.