World Watercolor Month 2026

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As I was browsing videos on YouTube last month, I came across a lady who does amazing watercolor painting… Her name is Emma Jane Lefebvre, and she said that July was World Watercolor Month. She announced a watercolor challenge for the month that sounded like it was perfect for beginners. Since I have not done any watercolor painting since high school and consider myself an absolute beginner, I thought I would join in….

One thing I am finding – it is easier to fix mistakes with sewing than it is with painting!!!! But I am trying not to be a perfectionist and really trying to ignore my many mistakes…

I must say…. I have mixed feelings about my progress so far, lol! But I do show you the good, the bad, and the ugly here on my blog, so I am going to share my progress so far…

Day 1

For Day 1, we had to do a colorwash, and that turned out ok… until I took the washi tape off and it ripped the paper… which annoyed me, but I told myself to get over it… and then we had to turn it into our cover page and WRITE on it… Well, I procrastinated that for a whole week, and when I finally did it I used a pencil first to try to make it a bit presentable, and then found out that when you try to erase pencil from watercolor, you erase the watercolor too!!!

But here it is with all its faults:

There is more that I can pick on with day 1, but I will refrain!

Day 2

Day 1 also had another page of colorwash with writing that I procrastinated as well…. finally wrote some encouraging words to myself…. it is next to Day 2, which turned out….okay…. I think you can work out what they are…. lol!

Days 3 & 4

Day 3 was fun, and half worked out. Some of my watermelons bled too much and are a disaster, but Day 4, I think I am quite happy with…

Days 5,6 &7

For Day 5, we started with a wash like on Day 4, which turned out quite well. However, on Day 6, we had to add to it…. I have to say the additions are less than ideal… I think it is supposed to be a view of a beach from above, with waves crashing and palm trees… You need quite an imagination for my version, haha!!!

Day 7 was strawberries and blueberries, and included a deliberate “bleeding” technique. There may be one or two berries that I am happy with on the whole page….

Days 8 & 9

Day 8 was fun! It took a while because we had to wait for the layers to dry, but we made a “seaglass” design on the top half of the page, and the other design on the bottom of the page was done with the same hue of paint, just in wavy lines on top of each other to create that color change… There is a proper term for it which I have forgotten…

Day 9 was learning a basic watercolor stroke that I will need to practice more… but the leaves were my first attempt and I am not too unhappy with the results…

Day 10

Oh boy, Day 10 was hard!!!! And I have very mixed feelings about the end result… it all looks so easy when Emma does it, but when I tried…. I think there is one flower I am actually happy with, and some that I am half happy with. I decided that if you look at it from afar, it looks sort of ok, (and maybe squint a little???!!!)…haha!

I added the page on the right for more practice, but it started to go from bad to worse, so I told myself to stop (like when you keep unpicking a block and it gets worse and you have to leave it be)…

I tried to “fix” some of the flowers, and that made them even worse… like I said, it is easier to fix a quilt block than a watercolor painting, I think!

I am a few days behind and almost feel like giving up, but I will not. I’d like to see the whole challenge through…..

I think I may be having a few issues with my supplies…

• First up, I am using watercolor paper from a pad that I folded in half and turned into a booklet. It was only about on day 6 that I worked out the paper texture on the back is different from the front… (duh!) which may be causing some problems.
• I am using the cheapest of the cheapest watercolor paint from Kmart… not sure if this makes a difference?
• I am also using the cheapest brushes from Kmart, and that might also be causing problems, especially with the flowers. I can’t seem to get the shapes quite right with the brush stroke….

At this stage, I don’t want to spend too much money on a new hobby… however, I am reminded of what I tell my quilting beginners: don’t buy a cheap sewing machine or supplies, because often if things go wrong, it is because of the supplies – not the operator.

So we will see… I will keep going… oh, another thing I tell my quilting beginners is :

“Keep your first quilt!”

Because you will be able to see how much you have improved…. so I will document my watercolor painting journey here and keep my first 31-day challenge book, and maybe, if I decide to keep learning, I will be able to go back one day and see some improvement!

Do you do watercolor painting? If so, do you have any tips for me?