A Canadian Online Watercolor Challenge, Eh?

Looking for something to do with the extra hours of daylight this summer? Guess what? There are
TWO great online watercolor challenges for July:

1. I’ve already posted the July list for Doodlewash here. I enjoy participating on IG with Charlie O'Shields and his watercolor friends every year. Great stories he has to go with the fantastic watercolors that he does.

2. July is National Watercolor Month in Canada, too! Firefly Books is running an online challenge to do daily watercolours throughout the month of July. (Did you get that spelling?) I found out about this from Marc Taro Holmes. See the wrap up of his recent Direct Watercolor challenge on his blog. Enjoy the guest artists' take on their experiences.

In some ways the two have quite different prompts and yet now and then the prompts for some days are quite similar.  Check out both and compare.

#FireflyWatercolorChallenge on Instagram

The Firefly Challenge--How it works:
Use the daily prompts to spark your creativity. Take a photo of your work every day for 31 days and upload it to Instagram. Tag your photos with #FireflyWatercolorChallenge. It’s that simple.
All you have to do is show up with some painting supplies and your creative spirit. Good luck!

Each daily Firefly challenge has a directive listed on the blog; a quote, a book reference, a creative nudge. Here are the first three examples.

Day 1: Show Us Your Palette
It’s Day 1 of the #FireflyWatercolorChallenge and we want you to show us the tools you’ll be using for the challenge. Snap a photo or paint a still life of your kit.

Here's mine for Firefly Day 1.

My Prima Tropicals with custom colors and favorite brushes

The Prima tin comes arranged as you see in the layout on the right, as complementary colors across from each other. I prefer to put mine in spectrum order. I found a green in the studio hoard that is thankfully different than the ones in the set, but it's a mystery to me. I think it's Sennelier, but not sure.  
Day 2: Favorite Colors
What are your favorite colors to use in your work? Paint a color wheel using all your favorite shades.

Day 3: Start Simple
In the wise words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Every artist was first an amateur.” Emulate 5-Minute Watercolor author Samantha Nielsen and start simple with a sketch of a house plant or other household item.

(from what I've seen in the preview, I like this book a lot for beginners.)

So, if you're interested, hop on over to the Firefly page and see if you're up for a fun month of watercolor. But don't tell me to stay in the lines! (Challenge #6)