Steve Strode's 30-day painting challenge

And another for 21- try another medium. Pastel is for me the devil and I only have a nasty cheap set which someone gave me years ago! I like to see pastel works but I don’t think it’s for me. 🥴

Well done you for trying something different. I won’t do every suggestion because I’ve done a lot of them anyway. One thing I’ve never really tried is coloured pencils. I have some but they’ve never attracted me, too meticulous. I must force myself to give them a try.

I don't do "proper" pastels - I don't like the dust, or the expense of framing them.  Though recently I've been working with combinations of ink, hard pastels (like conté crayons), supplemented with watercolour - pthalo blue is rather delicious, combined with black ink and conté crayon - and occasional bursts of strong colour from Mungyo soft pastels.  They work well on the heavy weight white paper I bought,  in a pad by String and Space, and I have a Daler-Rowney sketch pad made for pastels, in which I've used so far just ink, plus bistre, sanguine, black, and white conté. This all started when I bought a Sailor brush pen, ditto fude pen, and a Hong Dian fude pen; plus, Sylvia had given me her Rotring Artpen, which is in constant use. I've used conté for years, but not often in conjunction with ink before.  What has this got to do with Steve Strode's challenges/ideas?  Well - not a lot, to be honest; but I think that while suggestions for new ideas and subjects are helpful, so is acquiring materials we've not used before, and combining them with others - you start by scribbling away, or I did, and gradually completed drawings form; and from those, paintings can develop.   So as well as Steve's suggestions, maybe take a look at unfamiliar materials - try a bit of kitchen lithography, for instance; get yourself an ink stone, and sticks of Chinese ink (with Chinese or Japanese brushes); if you've not used a hake before, try that - ring the changes - different papers, boards, inks, paints, brushes, knives.  Just not all at once - it could get expensive. 

Marjorie, I’ve also done quite a few unintentionally, and I’m not planning to do many but thought I’d try to join in. I don’t do FB so not interested in that side of it. Robert I also don’t like the dust aspect of pastel. I also have two Fude pens which I really like and have used a lot. The problem with trying different things is that you can just go on buying and adding to the stuff that never gets used! After my January daily painting which turned into mainly using acrylic, I am really looking forward to restarting oils.

Tessa - buy my e-book: it may be heavy on text, but it's cheap - Oil Paint Basics; I have no sense of guilt about pushing it at people, because a) well, I have no sense of guilt anyway, b) it's so cheap you'll hardly notice it.  Amazon Kindle store. You make, of course, a good point about just buying stuff - but it's the "never gets used" bit that is the issue.  Of course there's no point at all in just surrounding yourself with art materials for the sake of it, and I know we all tend to buy things on spec - except on the whole I don't, because pre-reformation Scrooge is my mentor.  I have bought books whose purchase I've regretted, but with those - you don't know if they're good before you read them; and the same of true of videos - I watched one earlier today on YouTube in which the poor artist tried to explain his drawing technique, but just couldn't: I downloaded it to watch again, in the hope that something useful will come through, but so far it just hasn't.  In summary, though - I only buy materials I can see myself using; I thought I'd have a use for the fude pens, and indeed I've filled a sketchbook with my drawings created with them - I combined them with other materials, and they worked well; I've seen other products (won't name them, because I know people will descend on me saying oh, you should try them!  Well maybe, but I only have the one life, and there may not be all that much of it left) that were expensive, that I think produce results I could achieve in other ways, and that wouldn't really work with what I try to do.  An exception was a brush-pen: I never saw myself using one of those, and I don't use it very often - but for so long as the cartridges or ink in a converter remain affordable, it's a useful addition to the range of drawing materials.   Anyway - that's my advice!  I assume few of us on here are rolling in money - if anyone is, then I'd just like them to know I'm available for a quick marriage - and we need to be imaginative but not bonkers in our purchasing of materials.  Professional artists - I wouldn't classify myself as one of them these days - weigh up their purchases very carefully: they have to - they don't stint when expense must be incurred, but they don't splash the cash like a drunken sailor in port, either.

Robert, I only just noticed this! I have just downloaded your book and am looking forward to reading it. Thank you.

Challenge number four was to use one larger than usual brush or knife, so here I’ve used my largest brush which is a 3/4”. Is anyone else joining in this?

Ref the cost of materials: Since I never sell my work and can't get about much, I get almost all my materials from The Works. Cheap and unashamedly cheerful, I use a lot of A5 sketch books. Might not suit the R&A, but it keeps me happy. My lad sorted my camera out too, so..(-: