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I just wrapped up a 30 paintings in 30 days art challenge. I’m so glad I challenged myself to do this because I saw myself grow as an artist. I improved my ability to paint a variety of subjects and I also learned where I’m weaker and stronger. I’ve come out of the challenge with a creative energy for a new painting series (jewel beetles!), plus I know I really need to practice my florals even more.
Let’s go back to when I decided to do this challenge. My sister-in-law got me the Art Whale artists Gouache Paint Set 42 Colors – Basic. She found it at one of those stores that sells returns from Amazon and other places, so it was only a few dollars. I’ve used gouache quite a bit but have never tried the jelly gouache paints. They are very popular online but tend to have a few issues. They often develop mold if not used for a while so I knew I’d want to paint fast and furious before mold developed. They can sometimes have lightfastness issues so I didn’t want to create anything I’d sell.
Watch me talk about my 30 day painting challenge on my Youtube channel.
So what does one do when unexpectedly coming into a ton of wonderful coloured paint without having to deal with the drawbacks? You finally do a 30 paintings in 30 days challenge! By challenging myself to do many paintings quickly, I would be able to paint quite a few paintings quickly to avoid moldy paint. I’d also paint in a sketchbook so I shouldn’t have problems with the paintings fading in the light.
Why do a 30 day painting art challenge?
I’ve wanted to do a 30 day painting art challenge for years but I just never managed to make it happen. A limited-time painting challenge has a ton of benefits for artists.
- It lets you try out new techniques without feeling like you need to do a great job. If it doesn’t turn out, you just try again the next day.
- It gives you an opportunity to paint subjects you just haven’t gotten around to yet, because you aren’t spending multiple days on a single painting. I ended up painting quite a few images that I saved ages ago.
- It can give you a creativity boost, whether getting yourself out of a rut or purely to try something new. Each day you get a new opportunity.
- It helps you develop a habit of daily, or near daily, painting. The more miles you have on your brush, the more you’ll improve. Now that I’m done my 30 paintings, I can really see improvement in my skills.
Tips for your own painting challenge
You want to set yourself up for success before starting a painting challenge, so make sure you do some planning ahead of time.
Set some guidelines. I didn’t want to spend time each day trying to figure out what I wanted to paint because that can mean you just never start. I decided the first seven days would be food still lifes, then seven days of florals and plants, and seven days of landscapes. The final days could be whatever I wanted. I ended up doing insect and bird paintings for those last days and it was my favourite set of paintings. You could also search online for artist prompts for month-long challenges.
Choose your images/subjects ahead of time. If you’re painting from photos, choose which ones you want to paint and put them into a folder so they’re ready to go. If you’re painting from life, make a list of what you’ll paint. If you’re doing still lifes, have the items ready beforehand. If florals, know when and how you’ll get the flowers.
Be flexible with your plans. I originally wanted to really experiment with colour because there were so many in the paint set. When I did my first painting, I realized the gouache was too opaque for what I wanted to achieve, so I quickly dropped my plan to play with colour and mostly focused on just painting.
Paint small. You’re going to be painting pretty much every day so choose a manageable size. Since I was painting in a sketchbook, I just taped off and fairly small size “canvas” every day. I didn’t set a specific size, just that it would be small and worked for the image.
Set up a painting area for the entire challenge. I kept all my supplies out and in a spot where it would be easy to just sit down and get started. I didn’t want any mental barrier of having to get everything out and set it up.
Realize that you won’t love every painting. I did okay with my first painting, loved my second and hated the third. In the end it didn’t matter if I hated a painting because the next day’s painting would come soon enough and I’d have a fresh slate.
Don’t worry if you miss a day. I decided to do 30 paintings in 30 days and wasn’t able to keep up the first work week. I missed a couple days almost right away but I wasn’t worried because I knew I’d catch up on the weekend. If I’d decided I failed and quit, I would have missed out on everything I learned for the rest of the month. I just didn’t stress about if I missed a day. In the end, not only did I catch up but I finished in 28 days.
Keep the velocity going. Now that I’m done, I’m taking a few days to work on a couple other art-related projects for an upcoming art event. Once I’m done those, I’ll pull out the gouache to finish filling all my sketchbook pages.
Jelly gouache paint
Let’s take a look at the paint itself. Art Whale gouache comes in 50 ml cups of thick paint. The set I have has 42 colours, with a large range of colours, including neutrals. The cups come in a large tray with handles, so it’s fairly portable. It weighs a ton though – I’m talking pounds. It takes a while to set up initially because you need to peel a plastic cover off each, in addition to removing the lids.
The paint itself is very opaque and easy to use. Since it’s so opaque, I had full coverage in a single layer. It’s also water soluble which is handy for blending or when the paint in the tray dried a little.
Speaking of drying a little, since I was painting every single day, the paint would dry out a bit. I would spritz the paint cups with water, which helped, but the paint still developed cracks over time. Better than mold though! The tray comes with individual lids so you can cover the paint cups you aren’t using. I didn’t use them though. The main lid has a soft foam lining on the inside so it conforms to each cup and I figured that was enough.
I also found that my paint water developed a bit of a swampy smell. I only noticed it when I was changing it out for fresh water every couple days or so. During the month of using it, I didn’t notice the paint itself having a smell though.
There was a pretty big colour shift as the paint dried. This is very common with gouache, even in the highest quality paints. Occasionally, I didn’t plan well enough for that so a few of my paintings are a bit dark.
Get your own
Pick up some jelly gouache at your local art supply store or on Amazon:
