End of the Island: East

On the road, out in East Montreal I made it to the end of the boot...that is the shape of the island and a small park called Parc du bout de-l'ile. That is where I took the picture of a painting I made earlier this morning. You see my fully loaded saddle pack. 

Parc Marcel Leger with Maison Antoine Beaudry, 5 x 7" cold press watercolour, June 2021

 

Here is a selfie of me taken along the way.

And my trusty bike. The shore you see across the water is off the island. 

 

And here is a photo...not a painting, of some beautiful flowers growing in the Parc nature point aux praires. I actually did make a painting here, and will start posting them when I get back. There seem to be about 20 plus paintings from the trip so far. Tomorrow I take my bike home on tired legs!

Symphony of Brown No. 1

 

The other day I was riding my bike down the Maisonneuve path and I saw the most incredible array of browns- the siding of a condo, a fence, a garage, trees, there were a dozen different shades. I've been meaning to paint the scene but haven't had the chance to do it yet. Today on a short walk to get fresh air, I brought along the new earth max palette with no less than 15 shades of brown and some other colours for accents. It was great fun to employ a full battery of iron oxides and limonites on this quaint urban scene. It was done in a nearby park where I have painted before, primarily chosen due to the symphony of browns. Umber for the left, burnt sienna for the middle, and red iron oxide for the right condos. Raw umber natural for the fence, burnt umber for the bench, and umber with indo blue for the tree trunks and cars. Even the cloud shadow had caput mortum a violet iron oxide with indo blue.

Symphony of Brown No. 1, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2682a)

 Tomorrow I will be off on a bike trip to the east 'boot of the island' park, there are bike paths almost the entire route. I don't know if I can do social media but will certainly try, it worked okay from Sutton last year. I return on Friday. If all goes well I plan a similar bike trip to the west shores of the island early next week to conclude this brief vacation. Should be good to stretch the legs and get a few nice painting done.

Mystic Sidewalk

 After several paintings this weekend it was time for some palette cleaning. The four colours I use to make greens include phthalo green yellow shade (PG36), perylene green (PBk31), lemon yellow (PY175), and benzi orange (PO62). In fact, what we see as green is mostly dark yellow, which explains why I went through so much yellow paint in my years of painting. In the painting, yellow and orange are laid bare, against a backdrop of muted greys and slate green. A whimsical interlocking brick path invites the eye into the distance. A giant chicken roams the horizon looking for somewhere to lay more condos.  The new palette setup has been working great so far, after some tweaking I think it is all right for the summer. 

Mystic Sidewalk, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2683b)

Sunday Painting Trip: Little Burgundy

Little Burgundy is a developing neighborhood just southwest of downtown Montreal. I stopped at Jazzmen park because it was literally the center of Little Burgundy according to google maps, it is a small park with an area for jazz bands to play. The rest of the park is composed of comfortable looking recliners and towering pine trees. The ground was a carpet of pine needles, all dry as dust due to the ongoing drought. There was near complete silence here as I painted early in the morning. It really did feel like camping for a few moments, just missing the lake. 

Jazzmen Park, Little Burgundy, 6 x 7.5" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2685)

 

Continuing East by bike, I turned on Georges-Vanier Blvd north to get up to the metro station. There was a most spectacular view of the downtown core just over the crumbling Ville-Marie Blvd elevated highway 136. It took longer than usual to complete this painting my thumb was going to fall off by the time it was over! If you look closely, there is a Montréal Canadiens symbol on one of the skyscrapers, it is the condos that the organization built a few years ago. The tallest middle building is Place Ville-Marie. I made sure to get the full 'sweaty' concrete colour and texture, mostly with umber (PBr7) along with sienna (PR101) and some phthalo green (PG7).

City View along St. Antoine, 8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2687)

 

The Georges-Vanier metro station was an impressive array of concrete structures. The highway was in the background with an underpass road (Rue st. Antoine and Fort street), and a tangle of trees and signs, one said 'detour'. Montreal is famous for its summer detour signs, most of them don't really go anywhere it just means 'get lost'. Kidding aside, the detours are actually better now, one can drive through Montreal without too much trouble. At least on my bicycle!

Orange Line Metro, Georges-Vanier Station, Signs, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2686)

Birch Trees Verdun

 This challenging painting was done down in Verdun by the bike path. Cilei and Fritz and I went for a walk with Davidson and I stopped to make this one real quick. It was more technical than I thought and had to rush through a bit, there was a veritable wall of foliage with the twisting turning birch branches. TO paint 'white' spaces in traditional watercolour one has to leave the paper showing. That makes birch trees the hardest kind of tree to paint especially with all the little branches and textures. Their shadow side takes on a fascinating metallic grey, and glowing orange-yellow highlights or even burnt sienna can be seen depending on the age of the tree. The waterfront here can not be seen, I was standing down on the other side of the bike path trying to avoid people, and the strong sun. Maybe the pandemic is over now, but I'm not taking any chances. Still it all looks to be going right, hopefully we can get back to normal. 

Update: The spreadsheet shows this is the 3000^th painting I have done!

Birch Trees Verdun, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2683a)

Dust Cloud Cover

 

Reading up on the landscape of Burkina Faso there were a few pictures of massive dust storms. At the same time cicadas were in the news due to their recent emergence from dormancy. To create the dust cloud effect I combined an abstract orange-yellow cloud over top a dirty dusty horizon. The horizon was perylene maroon (PR179) with phthalo blue (PB15), when it was half dry I added some dilute yellow for the backrun, so right on the horizon it looks like the sand is blowing upwards and towards the strange creature in the foreground. The key to this composition is the curving antennae, and the sky blue which contrasts the impending dust storm. I will probably do more World Inspired Landscapes soon, but have been so preoccupied with the location painting lately.

Dust Cloud Cover, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2688b)

Dépanneur on Clark Street

 

 

I got out to the mile end today for a dentist appointment and stopped along the way for a quick painting. This is on the same corner as the famous Wilinsky deli and a popular ice cream store.  Finding the ethos was difficult, all the trees and foliage are manicured and landscaped. To begin I established the perspective lines and general outline with carbon black (PBk6) diluted with water, and proceeded to fill in all the greys. To make grey I usually combine indo blue (PB60) and burnt sienna (PR101), and I tint it yellow with ochre (PY43) or purplish with caput mortum (PR101) depending on need. Using black and grey like this is important to establish the value contrasts. It is tricky to get the hue correct, for example, the brick looked too cold in the end so I glazed it with some thin ferrari red (PR254). The bike was fun to paint.

Dépanneur on Clark Street, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 3155, with the June 2022 paintings)