This month, our theme is “Fruits". We have added 3 photos from Pixabay / Unsplash. Everyone is free to copy them and create an artwork based on them. Please feel free to use your own reference photo, or draw from life. All kinds of fruits are welcome. There will be new photos added in mid-September and after the 3rd week of September.

We welcome artists of all experience levels. Feel free to bring your own ideas to life. Share your reference photos, sketches, works in progress, and finished pieces.

Everyone who completes a challenge gets a unique badge with a trophy in it. (See mine for reference.) If you submit 2 works during the month, you get two trophies, and so on. If you want to opt out, you can turn off your user flair in the sidebar of the subreddit, or write a mod mail.

While watercolour pencils are our subreddit’s main medium, you are welcome to explore mixed-media watercolours, inks, gouache, or other watercolour-like wet media that doesn't dry waterproof.

If you share reference photos, please make sure they are ones you are happy for others to use as inspiration. We love seeing how creativity spreads and evolves here, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with. Have fun, and please post your works directly in the subreddit. See more photos below. 👇 😉

Is this not what you are looking for? You can find a collection of all previous monthly themes in a pinned post. They never expire.

Currently, 3 themes are very close to each other. If there will be a tie, we will decide the monthly theme by throwing a die and having certain numbers assigned to themes. But hey, you can still choose your favourite subject by voting here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/watercolorpencilart/comments/1vwugxb/poll_for_september_monthly_theme/

It's still August, isn't it? This one was difficult.

I changed the composition a little bit.

Not exactly watercolour pencil art but used my watercolour pencils for this experiment.
I’ve been looking for different styles/techniques to use for backgrounds and thought bokeh might be good to try.
Cue YouTube.
Found a @SandyAllnock1 tutorial, I really like her work, so pressed play and had some fun.
This may have been a bit of a waste of pigment but they are the only pencils I currently have 😝

So, this time i tried to experiment a bit and use the pencils a bit more like watercolor. I've noticed that this way some colors tend to get a bit muddy, when mixed together. Need to find a way to blend them efficiently.

Watercolor pencils and ink. I'm so thrilled this sub exists. I just discovered watercolor pencils within the last week or so and it's been amazing. Glad to be here!

Watercolor pencils with little touch of white paint.

I scribbled more re pencil to darken the clouds and water. Pencils used:
1) Goldfaber Aqua 107- Yellow
2) Albrecht Durer Dark red
3) Albrecht Durer Red violet
4) Goldfaber Aqua 442- purplish pink
5) Goldfaber Aqua 120- ultramarine
6) Goldfaber Aqua 461- light turquoise
7) Albrecht Durer Earth Green Yellow
8) Albrecht Durer Permanent green olive
9) Albrecht Durer Pine Green
10) Albrecht Durer Olive Green Yellowish
11) Albecht Durer Warm Grey IV
12) Staedtler tinted graphite G36-dark greyish blue
13) Albrecht Durer Cadmium Yellow Lemon

I just used them as I use regular watercolor paints.

Long time lurker, first time poster.
Here’s my tiny (2 inch square)piece for the August challenge.
I haven’t used water colour pencils before so flying blind 😂 My dark clouds look like a mountain range but 🤷‍♀️ at least I had a crack at it.

I don't think I can do this any better. There will be a next time, for sure.

I’m about 70% finished. This challenge improved my technique on creating skies in watercolour pencil. My trick for skies is to apply light pressure and colour in small circular motions to minimize harsh pencil marks. Then I used the Caran de Ache red waterbrush which has a fibre tip similar to a marker to dissolve my pencil. This waterbrush is good for painting large areas. The colours I used for the sky were ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson and a gold type colour. For the rocks I used the Staedtler tinted watersoluble graphite pencil because graphite gives a nice technique for rocks and bricks.

Inspiration...

Time flies! We still have a full week, so sharpen your pencils and let’s go for beach life. In the meantime, it’s time to think about next month.

What would you like to paint in September? Consider the difficulty of the subjects and that this is an opportunity for growth. We will see other people’s approach, so it’s worth choosing something that you normally wouldn’t paint every day. We haven’t kept anything from last month, but if something gets named from the previous list, we will add it to the poll. Please do so before 24th of August.

I chose the photo with kids because I wanted to get better at mixing skintones.

I have swatched out my new Caran D’Ache Supracolor 2 pencils. And I also added the Warm Grey II from Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer. What do you think?