PleinAirpril - April art challenge

I'm thinking of giving PleinAirpril a shot this year.  It's an art challenge where we attempt to do one small painting or other art project, outside in the open air, each day for the month of april.

To celebrate Earth Day and connect pleinair painters around the world, Warrior Painters launched the #PleinAirpril Challenge in 2017. Now in its 10th year, this global painting challenge continues to bring together thousands of artists to observe, explore, and create throughout the month of April.


This year’s theme is Harmony in Contrast ✨

I'm going to give it a shot this year, and see where it goes.  I'm not going to do the whole instagram thing, but an important part of this challenge is to share our attempts and keep accountable.  If anyone wants to join in, please feel free to post your art here.  

How to Participate


Paint one painting every day in April

Share your work on Instagram and/or other social media platforms of your choice ... (like permies)
...

Guidelines


Any medium is welcome - traditional or digital

Painting from life is encouraged, but photo studies or virtual pleinair are welcome too

The goal is consistency, exploration, and growth!

This year I have two focuses:  Composition and Trees.  

As for the medium, that's the harder bit.

My original plan was to use oil paint as I've dabbled a bit with en plein air oil painting last year.  There is a lot of room for improvement.



I feel like I got worse as the summer progressed.

A lot of that is composition issues combined with nerves.  

This year, life is strong and I have no idea if I could find 2 hours a day just to paint.  So I've simplified my kit to a small 4x4" watercolour sketchbook, a tombo mechanical pencil (mentioning the brand name because it has a massive eraser built in that is one of the best I've ever tried), and my fude fountain pen (looks like someone dropped it nib down, but it makes amazing marks).



This is the minimum kit for making a picture a day.  

I'm going to try to focus on simplification and composition - and values.  The ink should make it easy enough... in theory.  

Basically, it's a set I'm comfortable with, but have a lot of skills to improve.  

My sample art took 20 minutes to decide what to paint, 20 min to do the sketch and line work, then 2 hours to paint with watercolours (because drying time sucks).  Hopefully, things will speed up to just do the ink stuff.  If time allows, I can add in some additional mediums (thus the watercolour paper).  

I might try a few days with photos.

I have an idea for the first day, then maybe I'll get inspired to try a few more.

I will attempt to keep the photos dragon free, but I can't guarantee anything...

I love the dragons.