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Landscape Watercolour of Chipping Sodbury, 15" x 11".
A Winter scene of Brook Street Chipping Sodbury, looking towards the church tower in the distance. The narrow lane here is a popular spot for dog-walkers, so I had to slip in a little dog. Really easy to paint dogs when they're in the distance - it's just a quick splodge of paint. Sword brush was used to paint in fairly random twigs and leaves on the foreground trees.
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Landscape Watercolour of Dartmouth, 22" x 15".
The small Inner Harbour in the centre of Dartmouth, just next to the River dart and estuary. Just on the quayside is the 'Railway Cafe' - a building that looks like it should be on a station platform somewhere, not here well away from any railway line. This was painted during the winter months and places like dartmouth in the UK were experiencing really high tides, hence the water level being only a foot or so away from street level.
Painted on the usual Saunders Waterford Paper, 140lbs rough.
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Landscape Watercolour of Chipping Sodbury, 15" x 11".
Another painting of the crest of Bowling Hill in Chipping Sodbury and looking towards the town of Yate in the distance. It's only a small little hill before you get to the town, but I've been able to stretch 4 paintings out of it so far. There's so many angles I could choose and the lovely row of cottages on the right are a nice right hand border to the composition. Trees and bushes were done with an old mop brush, not too large and dryish paint on a dry background.
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Landscape Watercolour of Lanzarote, 15" x 11".
The wide harbour wall protecting the port/marina at Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote. It seems like most of the vehicles on the island are white and that makes for easier painting. I've merged the cars into their shadows and the harbour wall to make a more coherent composition. The far headland had a few splats of paint above to give the hint of some palm trees.
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Landscape Watercolour of Newquay, 15" x 11".
Towan Beach at low tide and the most central of Newquay's many beaches. At high tide the beach gets covered and people retreat to the Promenade with its shops and cafes or to the grassy slopes on the clifftops. I think this kind of composition works well in watercolour with the contrasting bands of light and shade and the cool blue/green grassy cliffs against the warmer tones of the sand.
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Landscape Watercolour of Chipping Sodbury, 15" x 11".
A quick sketch completed in under an hour (with the aid of a hair dryer), with a row of cottages in shadow and my old brush used for the trees in the background by splaying out the hairs and using quite thick pigment. Maybe a bit too much of the cobalt blue on the foreground shadow. Sometimes I rub out pencil marks which are still showing in unpainted areas, but I left them in here on the car windscreens.
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Landscape Watercolour of Chipping Sodbury, 15" x 11".
A view actually from a supermarket car park across to the tower of St John Baptist Church in Chipping Sodbury. There's a little footbridge here over the River Frome and leading on to the High Street. Quite a simple scene and done fairly quickly. A 'sword' brush was used for the foreground branches and leaves top right - plenty of paint on the brush and dab in a random fashion.
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Landscape Watercolour of Madrid, 15" x 11".
A view up towards one of the arched entrances to Plaza Mayor in Madrid. With the light behind us, it's a bit more difficult to pull off as a watercolour, and it helps to have some dark shadows giving the form of the buildings and windows. Plus leaving some negative areas unpainted like the guy's shorts and the parasol.
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Landscape Watercolour of Chipping Sodbury, 15" x 11".
A winter scene of a small footbridge over the River Frome in the town of Chipping Sodbury. After the initial washes went down (the darker ones) there was a fair bit of scraping out with a small penknife to give the lighter branches. You have to judge the time to do this just right - scrape too soon while the paint is too moist and you just might damage the paper surface (which I've done many times, bing too impatient). Best time is when the paper is just damp. Also another challenge with the picture was the wooden fence with part of it painted negatively with the sunlight catching it, the the rest being easier and darker than the background.
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Landscape Watercolour of Peranporth, 15" x 11".
The centre of Perranporth, a popular resort on the Cornish coast. The pub in the centre of the picture I think was flooded in the recent December storms and high tides, being very low and flat here. My painting was based on a photo taken by me last summer though, with the Ice cream parlours on the left and a bit of bright sunshine.
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