Funchal, Madiera, 15" x 11"
One of the main, wide streets leading down to the sea. A bit of a contra jour, painting into the light. I like to rough up pedestrian crossings - they wouldn't look right being too perfect with nice edges and clean white stripes. So I deliberately paint them in quite quickly - of course following the lines of my initial pencil drawing.
Painted on Saunders Waterford, Cold Press, 300 gms.
This painting is for sale. Please contact Tim Wilmot for details.
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Funchal, Madeira, 15" x 11"
A bustling area featuring historic homes, some with painted doors, plus lots of restaurants & bars where you can sit outside and do people watching or painting of course. Here I have gone fro strong sunlight and lots of angular shadows - almost quite abstract for me. Had to include a couple of figures for scale, emerging from the foreground, and added the one way sign helping with the composition pointing into the middle.
Painted on Saunders Waterford, cold press paper, 300 gms.
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Funchal, Madeira, 15" x 11".
A Taxi rank in the city of Funchal, Madeira. Cars can be a bit tricky when they're in the shade. The two methods I adopt are 1) with the first wash, paint them in with the colour they are going to be, and let it bleed into the surroundings, or 2), paint around them in the first wash and then as a later stage, paint them in, lighter or darker than the shade around them and add in some darker shadows below them. Windscreens generally I keep them dark as above or light - catching the sunlight.
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Here's my latest watercolour video, up on my YouTube Channel and a choosing a very ordinary subject, in this case a car park, to see if it can made into an interesting painting....
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Tavira, Portugal, 15" x 11"
A pine tree amongst some palms in this pretty little square in Tavira, Portugal. There's a lovely sweeping curve of the buildings on the left, up to the chapel/church at the end of the square. Very loose treatment (sorry) to the souvenir shop on the left - all their products on stands outside were just greatly simplified (I can't paint every postcard). Two figures, centre, almost blend into their background, helped by the limited palette in this one.
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Faro, Portugal, 15" x 11".
My central plan with the painting was to get those 3 reflections on the shiny pavement surface from the 2 white vehicles and the front of the right hand building. And another dynamic to deal with is the colour of the buildings. Yes they're white, but look more closely and there's a myriad of tones in there, especially on the older ones maybe in need of a lick of paint.
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Faro, Portugal, 15" x 11"
I got a bit carried away with the main colour theme here - the purple/lavender of the flowers seemed to have spread into the neighbouring shadows. Anyway, I am pleased with the overall effect. I have also used some consistent brush stroke styles here in the trees and shadows to make it a bit more harmonious. Blue skies always seem to work well butted up against warm terracotta roof tops.
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Quarteira, Portugal, 15" x 11"
I painted this scene some time ago and this is my second attempt. I also videoed the whole thing, so I might post it up on YouTube sometime. I think the scene makes a good study of tonal values and how to get maximum contrast in a picture with for example the reflections from a car windscreen against a dark background. In the foreground, the random spots of paper left unpainted make good rocks with a little shadow behind them.
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Here's my latest demonstration video up on my YouTube channel. This time another boat scene. In this one I have gone for some brighter colours and taking on a difficult background and trying to simplify lots of details on the boats. I hope you like it.
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Quarteira, Portugal, 15" x 11".
A town on the Algarve coast, and not a touristic sort of place but more for the locals. The scene is a residential area. I can't remember exactly how I found myself in this spot, but I thought my reference photo would make a good watercolour subject and I decided to add a few cars and a couple of figures to the composition. Some people have asked me about me leaving in the pencil marks from my outline drawing. I use a think 2B or 3B pencil and those lines still show. I personally don't mind them and they add something to the painting. I very rarely rub them out where I've left paper. Also on this painting I've not used so much white gouache for highlights - you can overdo it sometimes.
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