May 2026 Art Recap

Another month is over and wow I didn’t expect to have so much to show, but I guess a whole month is actually a long time? 🤣

Gouache

I feel like I made the most progress with my gouache work this month. It is quite different from watercolour and it took me a while to figure out how I like to work with it. Due to it’s opacity it’s just not possible to sketch with pen first and then fill in with paint. In the end what I do now is to block the biggest shapes first with colour and then refine around them. Sometimes I use a Faber-Castell Pitt Oil Base pencil to go over it, but I am increasingly just using gouache on it’s own.

These two are my favourites from this month:

Here’s the rest.

Watercolour

The main highlight in watercolour from this month is that I went out sketching from life for the first time (or “en plein air” to use the fancy French term). I kitted out my setup with some clips with magnets on, so that everything is combined into one. That in itself was a fun exploration.

I then also reorganized my palette and removed a few paints so that I could use the whole middle row for a sponge. Now it’s super easy to dry off my brushes. And no, I will not have fewer greens and blues.

Here are all my paintings

The Crete project

One fun thing I did did month was also to paint the same subject multiple times. First in watercolour and then eventually in gouache. I learned so much doing this and the improvements are quite noticeable, I think. This is the original subject.

Granulating paints palette

I also explored creating a watercolour palette only with granulating paints. I first used the following:

Pelikan Raw Umber, Winsor & Newton Potter’s Pink, Van Gogh Ultramarine, Rembrandt Green Earth, and Rembrandt Oxide Black.

I wasn’t super happy with how pale everything was. And the Raw Umber and Ultramarine were also too strong for the remaining colours. I then researched a bit and ended up with this:

Schmincke Horadam Volcano Yellow, Winsor & Newton Raw Sienna, Winsor & Newton Burnt Sienna, Winsor & Newton Potter’s Pink, Schmincke Horadam Manganese Violet, Schmincke Horadam Cobalt Azure, Rembrandt Green Earth, Rembrandt Oxide Black

This is a much more balances palette. The Siennas don’t granulate much, but they are great in mixes. The Vocano Yellow and Green Earth are borderline too low tinting, but still OKish.

I still need to go out and paint with them, but here are all the mixes you can get with them (minus the black) and some of them are just wild!

Tiny Paintings

I haven’t done much, just two more and I am now up to 18. I might still make the 100 until the 12 months are over. There’s still a lot of time, of course. Again, I redid the subject, because I wasn’t happy with my first try.

DIY sketchbook

I also started making my own sketchbooks! I’ve done origami and paper crafts in general for many years so that wasn’t too hard! I kept it simple and just used some of my A4 watercolour paper and folded it in half. So no cutting to size or anything. The next one is already in the works, but I guess that will be for next month.