Towards the end of last year I had got myself into a pretty strong routine of spending 30-40 minutes at the start of most days painting. In almost all of these ‘art practice’ session I would produce a miniature watercolour painting, about 5cm square, working my way through different themes. Pretty much as soon as I finished one series of 12 pictures, I would move onto a new theme and begin the next series. So, having completed my London Landmarks series I was in search of a new theme to work through and a chance comment by one of my personal tutees plus a comment from someone who had purchased a small composite print of my Plymouth Miniatures series pictures, led me to select the city of Bristol for my ninth series.
Some of the subjects for the series were immediately obvious – for example, the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the SS Great Britain – and it wasn’t difficult to identify other buildings and views that were suitable for miniaturisation. The full list of the pictures (working left to right and top to bottom in the grid of pictures shown above) is:
- the brightly coloured houses of Cliftonwood
- Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon Gorge
- the interior of St Nicholas Market
- the Bristol Balloon Fiesta
- the M-Shed museum on the dock side
- Bristol Templemeads Railway Station
- the Cabot Tower
- the Bristol Hippodrome
- the Old Vic Theatre
- the Clifton Observatory
- Brunel’s SS Great Britain
- Bristol Cathedral
As with all of my other miniature watercolour series (Dartmoor Scenes, Capital City Landmarks, Cornwall Landmarks, Exmoor Views, Plymouth Miniatures, House Plants, Trees, London Landmarks), I have listed composite prints and greetings cards of these pictures on Etsy. The best sellers so far seem to be the ones of the Old Vic Theatre and the Bristol Hippodrome, but I also had one order for almost the entire set of cards!
I’ve got two favourites from this set, the colourful houses of Cliftonwood, and the interior of St Nicholas Market. In the first case, I just like the simple blocks of colour that make up the houses, and in the second, I’ve always liked views that have a straight feature such as a road, railway line or canal that disappears towards a central vanishing point…
