No Missing Pieces

When naming this abstract painting, I was thinking of my parent's new found love of assembling puzzles in their home. Another cool puzzle-themed painting was Addictive Puzzle, a surrealist work I did many years ago. Perhaps its time for another large puzzle-themed painting. I would like to paint at least one large painting this year and time is starting to run out! Things are stabilizing at work now with the teaching term over so things can return to normal.

No Missing Pieces, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, December 2022 (No. 3211a)

Auto Shop on a Rainy Night

There is nothing quite like painting a local auto shop on a cold, windy, rainy night in NDG. That's what we do for fun around here. Well that's what I do, and it hasn't seemed to catch on or anything. I may well have walked past this scene, turned up the next staircase to our condo and grabbed a warm cup of coffee. Instead I stopped, held my umbrella, palette and paper with the left hand, and paintbrush with the right hand and stayed hunched over a little to protect the painting from the rain. Van Gogh used to paint just about anything at any time regardless of his own comfort, which provided some much needed inspiration. 

The painting features a dark purplish sky with impressionistic trees reaching upwards. The auto shop is depicted in an almost abstract way with its own artificial lighting and gas pumps in the foreground. The ground is a kaleidoscope of reflections and rain drops. I also signed my initials in rain drops barely discernible in the bottom right. Considering how dark it was ( I could only see shades of grey and faint colours) I quite like how the painting turned out, it is a Van Gogh inspired impressionism-style painting.

Auto Shop on a Rainy Night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2022 (No. 3303)

UFO Landing

 On the way home an unidentified flying object landed on Somerled Avenue and I was fortunate enough to complete this painting without getting abducted. Actually, if you haven't figured it out yet this is the facade of the Metro grocery store which has an overhang lined with bright white pot lights. The night's sky in the background was a rich dark blue permeated by a chaos of lights from the city. To paint the dark sky I used a mix of indo blue (PB60) and pyrol orange (PO73) and to make it really inky black I added some phthalo green (PG7) and perylene maroon (PR179). As the details got filled in the illusion started to emerge, as long as the focal point was looking up, I knew the traffic and street lights could just be an abstraction. It was quite cold at this time, below zero. Perhaps the aliens would just fly off, this planet is too cold right now.

UFO Landing, Metro Grocery, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2022 (No. 3302b)

Paintings of Contrast

 Some impressive scenes were created by the low winter sun and overcast clouds today. Below zero, I went with salt water (20g per 100mL) in two containers, one for dirty one for clean water. To let the paintings dry without smearing them I had my simple drying rack, which I blogged about a few years ago. This scene was along the Lachine canal looking west, just near Verdun.  I liked how the sun was causing a vertical white reflection and the old industrial smoke stack was creating a vertical black reflection. It was a difficult painting to pull off, especially as it remained moist the whole time. It was worth the effort though, I quite like this painting. Impressions of Canal?

Canal Contrasts, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2022 (No. 3300)

This one was done downtown where they are building a bunch of new condos in the west part of Old Montreal. The sky had a strong contrast between the dark clouds, light sky, and dark foreground elements. The condos had colourful reflections from the warm sky.

Condo Horizon, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2022 (No. 3301)

Here is a scene where Rosemont goes over St. Laurent, right at the top part of Mile-End. I've always wanted to paint this area, and chose today to stop on my way to Anatol Spices and try it out. The conditions were tough for a detailed painting, with the salt, below zero, overcast, the paint stayed moist. Usually I count on the layers drying. But from years of experience, some of my first outdoor landscape paintings were done in winter, I know that the style has to adapt in the winter. It worked out okay, you an see the colourful murals under the highway.

Overpass Underpass, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2022 (No. 3302a)

Green Canadian Windy Night

Just before buying some groceries I stopped to make a quick painting of the store using my highly optimized winter painting bag. It contained one square bottle with a tiny bit of salty water, two brushes in a cardboard holder, one piece of paper in a mini drying rack, and some rags. The square bottle makes it easier to get the cap off with one hand, and the cardboard holder makes the brushes easily accessible. Ideally I never have to take my gloves off to make a painting because it really hurts the hands and shortens the amount of time you can stay outside. It didn't matter much today because it was only zero, albeit very windy. To make the dark colours I mixed earth paints with carbon black, while the sky was red-orange (PO73) with dark blue (PB60). To create the highlights it is important to keep the whole painting relatively dark, with just a few bright areas like the lit-up signs, store interior, and some highlights on the exterior.

Green Canadian Windy Night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2022 (No. 3293b)

Clouds over Cavendish

 Getting off work slightly early I could make this quick painting with the remaining light. I was standing on the Cavendish overpass bike path, looking north west. The building in the foreground is a private school, and the building in the background is one of many large brown apartments in the area. I really just wanted to capture the sky with the overlapping trees which made a nice contrast. There were also some illuminated signs and windows on the building which were interesting to paint. I wore the deerskin mitts again, mostly to practice painting with them on, which presents additional challenges but keeps my hands warm when painting outdoors in the winter.

Clouds over Cavendish, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2022 (No. 3299b)

Joe and Ralph Auto on a Cold Night

With December upon us, the weather is cold and window but without much snow. Tonight after work I made this painting of the now famous Joe and Ralph's auto across the street. It was cold and windy but I had on my new deerskin mitts that kept my hands toasty warm. Mind you, it made the painting a lot harder to do. The idea was to practice painting with the mitts on. There were several adjustments such as only having two paintbrushes, keeping the brushes in a cardboard holder to make them accessible, only one water container, and using the winter drying rack for the painting to keep it from smudging. With all that the painting turned out alright, the auto shop has an eerie glow, and the impressive tree reaches up emotively to the inky night sky.
 

Joe and Ralph Auto on a Cold Night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2022 (No. 3295b)