Original Watercolours by Tim Wilmot

Shoppers in Fore Street Exeter, Devon

Exeter, England, 22" x 15".

Fore Street in Exeter, a busy crossroads in the main shopping area of this city in Devon UK.  What attracted me to the scene were mainly two things - the angle of the light coming left to right (allowing me to introduce various figures of different sizes, and that lovely red building (this is Paternoster House, a Victorian house with a very ornate facade and a little white turret at the top) contrasting against the coolness of a winter sky and butted up against the yellow of the next door shop.

 

Row of shops at Cala Mijas, Spain

Cala Mijas, Spain, 15" x 11".

A row of nondescript shops with their apartments above, in the coastal town of Cala Mijas on the Costa del Sol.  It's summer and midday, so hopefully a feeling here of heat and bright sunshine.  I love painting rows of parked cars/boats, as anyone who follows this blog will know.  They have a nice pattern/rhythm across the composition and being parked together makes it easy to connect all the shapes so as not to make them too isolated.

 

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.

 

Entrance to Yate Shopping Centre 2

Yate, South Gloucestershire, 15" x 11".

The entrance to my local shopping centre.  Yate is a 'New Town' developed in the mid 70's and the shopping centre is very much from that era - all squares and lines, no curves, so simple to paint!  Sky was done quite quickly - clear water painted over the area, leaving some areas dry.  Then in with a cool dark for the clouds and some cerulean blue dragged here and there for the sky itself.

 

Meadow Street Weston Super Mare

Weston Super Mare, 15" x 11".

Meadow Street in central Weston Super Mare.  A painting of perhaps high contrast with the left brightly lit and casting dark shadows on shop facade.  A banner across the street adds a bit of interest and it's far enough in the distance, you don't need to put any lettering on it.  I think that car could have done with the top being left unpainted - could have made a little focal point there.

Paper:  Saunders Waterford Rough, 300 gms.

Albufeira Old Town 4

Watercolour of Albufeira Old Town, 15" x 11" on Saunders Waterford Rough 300 gms.

A loose style watercolour, more a sketch completed in approx one hour.  Plenty of light warm tones up against denser cooler tones to give a feeling hopefully of a sunny narrow street here, lined with souvenir shops and bars.  Cerulean blue and cad red was dropped in various places for shop goods and reflections.

 

 

The posh shops of Rue Francois Sibilli in St Tropez

Watercolour of St Tropez, 15" x 11" on Saunders Waterford Rough 300 gms.

The Rue Francois Sibilli in St Tropez and lined with top-end shops yet still has a laid back feel.  I can see I went to town with plenty of heavy warm tones for the buildings, bits of cadmium orange mixed with yellow ochre and light red.  All cooled down a bit and darker into the foreground shadows.

 

Fore Street Shops, Sidmouth, Devon

Watercolour of Sidmouth, 15" x 11" on Saunders Waterford Rough 300gms.

The fairly narrow Fore Street in this South devon town and quite a complex subject with all the shop windows, shop signs, reflections all over the place, the light at a low angle (my source photo was taken early spring) and figures - some showing, others merging into the shadows.  I made the foreground shadows fairly warm with alizarin crimson dominating the wash.

 

Abbotswood Inn Yate

Watercolour of Yate, 15" x 11" on Saunders Waterford Rough 300gms.

The Abbotswood Shopping Centre and Abbotswood Inn (formerly known as the double O two - a reference to the concorde aircraft program in the area) in Yate and a typical example of early 70's architecture with square plain buildings with flat roofs.  The pub is the building on the right.  Probably the focal point is the guy on the right, with a bit of high contrast against a dark background.

 

Chipping Sodbury High Street 7

Landscape Watercolour of Chipping Sodbury, 22" x 15".

A sketch off half way down the main street in the market town off Chipping Sodbury with the town church tower just popping up about the shop roof tops.  A bit of a challenge this painting as my source photo was in the shade and devoid of people, so I had to invent shadows and some shoppers.  The buildings also present their own problems - no straight lines and nothing symmetrical.