Original Watercolours by Tim Wilmot

View along Rua Serpa Pinto to the Capuchin Convent, Faro

Faro, Portugal, 15" x 11".

Rua Serpa Pinto looking towards the 'Capuchin Convent' - not a Convent any more, but a local church.  What attracted me to the scene were the lovely warm and shabby looking walls down one side of the street and from a composition point of view, the church in the distance with its contrasting cooler tones.  Put quite a bit of concentration into getting those three bell towers right with a smallish synthetic brush.  I think the middle tower, some storks were nesting on the top - quite a common scene here with some very precarious nest locations elsewhere in the city.

 

Colourful Square in Chania, Crete

Chania, Crete, 15" x 11"

A colourful square in Chania next to the 'Ventian Harbour'. A bit of an experimentation in how mcuh colour I could introduce to a painting without going too much over the top.  The Hotel on the right was that red, but I enhanced the yellows of the buildings to the left - hopefully not too much.  A good dollop of Neutral Tint was added to Ultramarine Blue for the darks.  Cobolt Blue my favourite colour for light shadows predominates in the foreground.

 

Curved street corner in the old town of Mijas, Spain

Mijas, Spain, 15" x 11"

Mijas is a lovely old village with white-washed houses and narrow winding streets, high up in the mountains being the Costa del Sol coastline.  My scene is a street corner, with an unusual curves and tiers like a wedding cake.  Those curves were quite tricky to get right - in reality they don't run in parallel lines.  I thought the shops blinds and the parked cars made for a bit of an interesting repetitive pattern.

 

Port Street Cherbourg France

Cherbourg, France, 15" x 11".

Just off the port perimeter, Port Street looking towards a Brasserie and Cafes.  I think with figures in a painting, for me the easiest thing is to have them walking towards me or walking away.  To have too many walking towards you could look like something out of a Michael Jackson's Thriller Video, so I have to make a conscious effort to now and again have a figure sideways on.  I 'make up' all my figures, and practice frequently with pencil sketches drawing them all all different angles.

 

Funchal Madeira - An exercise in negative painting and perspective

Funchal, Madiera, 15" x 11".

For me, a serious bit of negative painting (painting around light areas with dark paint) and perspective.  On this mountainous island, here's a road going uphill, and taller buildings with their vanishing point disappearing into the distance.  The trickiest part of the painting was going around the white van and getting the shadows right.  Not sure if I needed that guy in the foreground - I drew in the outline of the foreground shadow and I think it needed something to connect it into the rest of the composition.