Hello there!
Are you enjoying your summer? We’re in our mid-summer weather pattern now, full blast, with beautiful sunrises and sunsets and thick humid heat in between. But our morning walks have been lovely – there’s just enough of a gentle breeze in spots near the creek that make me wish I could stay out all day.
Did you know that July is World Watercolor Month? I didn’t – until I got an email from ArtistsNetwork telling me about it. Here’s what I found out!
The focus of World Watercolor Month isn’t just to create watercolor paintings. It’s to increase awareness for the importance of art education in children’s lives and to raise money in support of art education for disadvantaged children. World Watercolor Month was founded and championed as a national Day of the Year by Charlie O’Shields from Doodlewash. (https://doodlewash.com/) Doodlewash supports arts education for disadvantaged
children through a nonprofit called The Dreaming Zebra Foundation (https://dreamingzebra.org/). When you
donate to Dreaming Zebra, you’re helping them provide art & music supplies to underprivileged children
throughout the world.
On the Doodlewash website you can donate to Dreaming Zebra directly or, by purchasing World Watercolor Month mugs and T-shirts, donate indirectly. The money from those sales goes to Dreaming Zebra.
I ordered a shirt. I was so excited to get it that I took a selfie right away.
Most people choose to participate in the same manner as Inktober. There are a list of daily prompts on the Doodlewash website. You don’t have to use them, but the general idea is to create something in watercolor every day in the month of July, and the prompts alleviate the need to think up your own subject matter. When you’re finished, you post your work on social media.
I’ll be honest. My watercolor skills aren’t that great. So practicing every day, even if it’s just a few doodles or brush strokes, seems like a good idea.
here’s one I’m not proud of:
It was fun to use salt to get the snow effects. But the bird colors weren’t what I thought they should be. And frankly, they look more like lost chickens than song birds. No wonder they’re so miserable!
Are you participating in World Watercolor Month? How are your paintings progressing?
originally posted at annettezimmerman.com
