20 Days Challenge with Robert Joyner

About the course: The 20 Day Watercolour Challenge by Robert Joyner is an easy-to-follow class, especially if you like to follow a process and get some aha moments not just at the finish of the course but during the lessons as well. It will be interesting to see how you started and what you finished with. Meanwhile, you’ll get the chance to learn about colours, values, design and composition ideas and much more.

When Robert published this course, it was no question that I would join it. I just finished one of his other classes, and I wanted to start another one. Although this class aimed to be a daily challenge, I did it differently: I followed it only on the weekends. It was really enjoyable this way as well. Below I share with you my sketchbook with the process. I use a sketchbook with hot-pressed paper and then re-create the “takeaways” on cold-pressed paper to get the right strokes and textures.

Week 1 – Timing is Everything, and Learn To See
In the first week, we set up our goals with this class and we learned about some basics, like colour temperature, intensity and saturation. Then we experimented with shapes and lines by breaking down some simple objects. Blind contour was one of the techniques we followed this week.

Week 2 – Manipulate Values and Test How Well You Can See Them
High and low key values and colours were in focus this week, together with the scissors. I never attempted to draw scissors, thinking it was a complicated object. I just learned that it’s not and that we can experiment a lot on simple house objects. Sometimes I can’t resist using my fountain pen. I just feel that the painting needs something extra. Having an interest in urban sketching also feels natural to do so. 🙂

Week 3 – Connect Values and Change the Way You See
This week’s challenge was to play with three different objects from the refrigerator. We learned about composition, values and colour harmony as well. The main focus was on values, one of the most essential parts of the whole process. Here I started to see the big picture of the entire challenge and managed to have a big aha moment by seeing what I created.

Week 4 – Never Chase to Experiment and Take Risks
When I thought that I had learned everything it takes to create a decent still life painting, the teacher surprised us with some other challenges. We created upside-down paintings and tonal colour studies. In the last painting, we combined some of the ideas we learned, and this was the moment when all the things we learned during this month came together. It was a fun and challenging class at the same time.