Scenes around the new malt factory

Best known for the iconic Farine Five Roses sign, the Canadian malt factory is also a sprawling, metal and concrete compound that produces and distributed malted barley. Who knows what these sky tunnels do, but they connect two of the massive silo structures via this central tunnel connector. Maybe that's where the barley elves live, turning it into beer or something! To the left is one of the blue gantry cranes, while a few trucks sit in the foreground waiting for the elves to deliver the cargo.

Tunnel connector, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024

There were some neat contrasts here between the vertical concrete silos and the horizontal shiny metal cylindrical trailers. Scenes like this are deceptively hard to paint because of the scaling and perspective that has to be translated from a wide field of view onto a tiny piece of paper. I hold my brush up to get the angles, and try to plan out exactly how much of things to show. For example, I cropped the top of the large structure on the right, and did not show the rest of the building that extends off to the left. its like a photoshop crop but I do it with the brush on the paper. 

Silos and trucks, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024

After all the concrete I needed to paint something resembling nature, and this prominent tree next to the malt factory with the highway in the background suited perfectly. Orange is starting to creep into the leaves, and with the last day of summer now past, it seems we are truly heading into fall, albeit a warmer one than usual.

Tree highway malt factory, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024