This March I will be painting 30 landscapes in 30 days with a limited palette of Utrecht paints. It has been a few years since I’ve painted landscapes and I’m really excited to get back into it. This challenge also fits nicely into my goal this year of completing several 30-day challenges. I will be posting my progress to the blog weekly and daily to social media. If you would like to follow along with my daily progress, find me on Instagram or Facebook.
All of the paintings from this challenge will be available for sale in my shop. I will be adding them to the shop weekly, but if one catches your eye, let me know and I’ll make it available sooner. Paintings will be $60 each or 2 for $90 if you use the code BG319. Please e
Aside from monochrome, I’ve never used a limited palette. Of course, I don’t use every color on my palette for every painting, but I’ve always had a nice range of at least 10 colors at my disposal. So using only 5 including black and white will be quite a change. For comparison, I currently have 16 colors on my palette. I thought it would be interesting to limit my palette for this challenge and to add to that, I also decided to use a brand of paint I’ve never used before. My palette will consist of Titanium White, Zinc Yellow Hue, Quinacridone Red, Phthalo Blue, and Ivory Black. It is the Color Theory Set by Utrecht which I will be reviewing at the end of this 30-day challenge. I chose this set by Utrecht because it didn’t contain Alizarin Crimson as many other sets did, I needed more Quinacridone Red and Ivory Black, and I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Utrecht brand.
My go-to yellow is Cadmium Yellow. For a very long time, it was my only yellow and served my needs quite well. Occasionally I need a cool yellow and will use Lemon Yellow, but I don’t use it much. Adjusting to this yellow will likely be a challenge. The yellow in the set is also a hue. It is the same pigment as my non-hue version but with white added, which I’m sure will affect my color mixing to some degree. I’ve used Titanium White, Quinacridone Red, Phthalo Blue, and Ivory Black from other brands and expect these paints from Utrecht to behave similarly.
Originally, I planned on painting a variety of landscapes since I have tons and tons of landscape photos from all over. Then, as I flipped through my photos, I decided that it would be nice to narrow it down and only paint Utah landscapes. It has always bothered me that my art doesn’t really fit in with the local art scene which is dominated by local landscapes, Native American, western/cowboy, and very spiritual/abstract; landscapes being the only category I’m remotely interested in. This could be a chance to fit in a little.
The little corner of southeastern Utah I occupy is a pretty, red, rocky, desert, interspersed with large swaths of land I like to refer to as the wastelands that are neither pretty or easy to traverse. I’ve historically had a really hard time painting rocky landscapes in general and the particular shade of red around here is an added challenge. Apparently, I’m in the mood to pile on the challenges. I hope I don’t regret these decisions a week into this. If you suddenly see a variety in locations, it’s safe to assume I couldn’t handle painting one more red rock.