My review of Watercolour artist Tim wilmot’s online painting demonstration

Tim Wilmot

I’m sure that there are very few people that follow me here that don’t already know about Tim Wilmot. I came first came across Tim many years ago, soon after I first started painting in watercolour. He already had a plethora of brilliant watercolour demonstrations that were freely available to access on his YouTube channel, and you can also see and follow his work on Instagram too.

I watched many of Tim’s freely available YouTube videos and really enjoyed his calm and thorough commentaries, which are distinctly unpretentious and down to earth. I even found on a blog post from 2016 entitled Figuring it out a reference to one of Tim’s videos that I studied when working on my figures! To this day I still struggle to heed Tim’s advice on things like brushes (where he doesn’t advocate having lots of the most expensive available brushes to hand!) I still welcome the sentiment that successful painting has much more to do with what you do with the brushes you do have, rather than necessarily needing to have the best possible brushes!

I’ve continued to follow Tim’s work over the years but perhaps a little less avidly as my interests have led me down a few other avenues (and often, let’s be honest, a few cul-de-sacs too!)

Also, and quite understandably, Tim’s approach has developed too, in terms of his abilities and how he delivers his video content. I recall that he set up his Tim Wilmot Patreon Channel a long time ago and becoming a member of this community was something that I toyed with at the time.

More recently, Tim has been delivering his demonstrations via Screencast and often sharing whole videos, compilations or excerpts on YouTube. All of this serves as a precursor to me recently seeing one of Tim’s recent previews of a scene that he was going to base his next demonstration painting on, and inviting people to subscribe.

A view with haybales

This is the view that really whetted my appetite!

I thought that this was a great image and it tapped into my recent forays into various scenes with hay bales! Here’s a collection of some of my own recent paintings featuring haybales, a good many of which I’m delighted to say are currently adorning the walls of other people’s houses!

Based on this little collection, I’m sure you can see why this particular demonstration by Tim caught my attention! Although I’m no newcomer to the subject matter, it’s still interesting to see how another artist might go about it, especially when it’s an artist you’ve long admired!

Another salient point worth mentioning is the all-important cost! These demonstrations take around 2 hours, including all the introductions to the image, the approach to be taken, what will be the focal point and any other considerations that he feels worthy of highlighting. Tim also offers participants the opportunity to submit their efforts to him afterwards and provide a brief commentary on them afterwards which he records and publishes on YouTube for everyone to access.

For all of this, the cost is a mere $7.50, which in today’s money is about £6.40. I personally think that this is tremendously good value for money!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch the live demonstration that Tim did. On the one hand, I was a little disappointed at this, as in an ideal world, I would have liked to try to paint along with Tim as I have done before with some of the other online workshops that I’ve done. On the other hand, I was also looking forward to just watching the video in my own good time when I could properly focus on it without the pressure of trying to keep up!

As it was, I ended up watching the video in short instalments in between all my other commitments! As I’d come to expect, it was delivered in Tim’s trademark calm and down-to-earth manner. He takes time to answer all of the questions and queries that participants pose and, every step of the way, provides a really thorough commentary.

Again, due to circumstances, there was a good few days between me watching the video and actually getting around to paint the view. When I did, I tried to do it as much from my memory of what Tim demonstrated, rather that by watching the demo all over again and pausing it every few minutes.

My hope was to follow Tim’s lead, but to still paint it ‘my way’. I did on occasion still refer back to the demonstration, but this was mainly when I was waiting for something to dry before moving on to the next stage!

Here’s my interpretation of the scene:

I was quite pleased with how this turned out but, even so, I had hoped to make another attempt at it but sadly the time ran away from me! If you’d like to see how everyone else got on with this subject, you can see all of the paintings that were submitted and hear Tim’s critiques of each and every one of them in this YouTube video:

I say ‘each and every one of them’ – but in a characteristic fashion reminiscent of my school days and almost every non-work related deadline since… I didn’t manage to submit my painting in time to be featured.

What came as a total surprise however was that even though I missed the deadline, Tim did still take the time to have a look at my painting and provide me with some feedback. This video doesn’t appear to be publicly available, but for anyone interested, you can still see and hear what Tim had to say about my effort.

I think Tim’s feedback was on the whole really positive and encouraging and I completely agree with his comments about the shadow of the tree and the need to suggest a little more texture for the stubble of the field. After painting the shadow of the tree in the mid-distance, I was surprised at how dark it dried and I should have lifted some of this off to lighten it and, either reveal some more of the colour that I had used or add some colour in to lift it a little. Similarly, with the field stubble, I was being cautious not to overdo the dry brush (something I’m often guilty of) and tried to indicate some texture with a bit of judicious spattering, but nevertheless, it does still look far too pristine!

I really enjoyed this whole experience and would certainly recommend that others consider trying out one of Tim’s demonstrations! I know I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for scenes that he’s doing that capture my imagination.

My next exhibition

Following hot on the heels of my last little showing with the Sussex Watercolour Society, I’m delighted to report that I’ll be showing my works again as part of the Hurst Festival on the weekend of the 24th and 25th of September, from 10am – 5pm. The exhibition is titled ‘From the Downs to the Sea’ and will be an exhibition of original paintings and prints celebrating Sussex – and in my case well beyond too! – by 16 Sussex-based artists.

The venue for the exhibition is Danny House, in Hurstpierpoint. Danny House is now a rather remarkable retirement home and, while I’m not at all familiar with the venue, having had a look at some images of it, and this little video below, I’m thrilled at the prospect of seeing my work here. I’m also rather hopeful that I might get a few reference images to work from too!

I hope that you might be able to drop by and pay a visit if you find yourself in the vicinity!