World Inspired Landscapes: São Tomé and Príncipe

São Tomé and Príncipe is a rare country that was uninhabited when the Portuguese colonists arrived to make a base. The islands' climate was so hostile and miserable that it was more of a trading post or stopover, sadly a stopover for the slave trade. Small slave ships  would arrive from the west coast of Africa, load onto larger boats and sail west across the Atlantic ocean to Brazil. With its volcanic earth, the country was good for growing sugar cane, and agriculture is a major part of the industry. The painting shows an interpretation of an old 17th century map of the main island,  São Tomé, while Principe is further to the north, and the coast of Gabon is way off to the east. I added some typical sea creatures that were drawn on maps back then, it was more of a Danish thing, they had superstitions about sea creatures. To yellow the map, I applied a mix of yellow ochre and orange (PY43, PO62), with some burnt umber (PBr7) around the edges to give it a worn look. Usually yellowing of the paper is a bad thing, but here it was meant to simulate age. Maps were probably on hide parchment back then anyways, better with all the sea water splashing around, so maybe this is the colour of tanned hide.
 

World Inspired Landscapes: São Tomé and Príncipe watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, April 2025

World Inspired Landscapes: San Marino

San Marino is on of three countries that is completely surrounded by another country, that is Italy. The other surrounded countries the Holy See (Vatican City) also surrounded by Italy, and Lesotho completely surrounded by South Africa. A few blogs back I was musing about how mountainous countries seem to be less conquered in history, but the story on San Marino is a little different. Although mountainous in places, there were no particular defense attributes this country had, rather, it was the complicated history of Italy. Before I started the series, I did not know that Italy only formed as a country more recently, during the mid 19th century actually. Prior to that it was a collection of regional areas, the remnants of the Roman Empire. San Marino has been independent since antiquity, although is suffered from some occupations by Italy and France. In the World Wars they stayed neutral. Their government is unique, they rule by an elected committee rather than a head of state, and there are elections every 6 months. 

Exploring pictures of San Marino revealed a lot of chartreuse (lime green) and yellow-tan colours, with dark pine trees. In the Italy painting, there was a similar colour scheme, and olive trees were shown. In this painting of San Marino I started by painting an elaborate field of grass with flowers, then realized it was the foliage of an imaginary tree so I flipped the painting over and painted the tree trunk, branches and added a simple wash for the grassy meadow. Just missing the Spring Fawn!
 

World Inspired Landscapes: San Marino, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, March 2025

World Inspired Landscapes: Samoa

Samoa is a remote island-nation in the south pacific ocean, the closest location you may know is Fiji, and even that is over 1000 km to the south! Despite its remoteness, it was briefly occupied by German Empire, and afterwards without violence it was ruled by New Zealand until its independence. Like most of these locations, the islands have steep interiors due to volcanic activity, surrounded by lush vegetation and wide valleys. When a volcano erupts it leaves a cone of debris which steadily erodes, leaving the molten core behind. Called a volcanic plug, these cores stand tall on the landscape, such the ones I painted under the giraffe in the Cameroon painting. This one shows a volcanic mountain off in the distance and a typical beach in the foreground. Since this was a rare place where the indigenous culture and people seemed to have existed without too much outside influence, I wanted the painting to feature some cultural element. A famous ritual involves swirling of fire-batons in a circle, which creates a spinning disc of light. I omitted the person that would be behind such a display, instead showing the landscape at night. Using my experience from painting on location, I could mix all the necessary colours and make the fire pop.
 To make the fire effect, first I outlined in light orange, then filled in the entire background. To finish, a bright orange outline, with a bright yellow outline were added to make the fire seem to be alive. The inside of the fire is just white paper, but the dark background and glow-effect on the sand gives it the illusion of being bright.

World Inspired Landscapes: Samoa, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, March 2025

World Inspired Landscapes: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

 

Like the other islands in this region, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines had an indigenous population that was mostly displaced by European colonialists and slaves that were eventually freed in the 19th century. After slavery ended, a labor shortage lead to workers from Portugal and India immigrating. The Grendadines are 32 smaller islands but only 7 of them are inhabited by people. In the painting, it looks like a side-view of palm trees against a turquoise sea at first, but its actually meant to be an overhead view of palm tree shadows. I saw this kind of image while scrolling through Caribbean pictures on the internet and took on the challenge of painting it for the World Inspired Landscape series. It was harder than I thought, below are the first two versions. The key was to get the value of the water correct, simplify the textures, and omit the actual palm trees to complete the illusion.

World Inspired Landscapes: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines v3. 2.5 x 4.5" cold press, March 2025

 

In the second version I raised the value of the water, making it lighter, and simplified the textures. The brown shadows on the sand looked too much like tree bark, and the paint ran near the sand.

World Inspired Landscapes: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines v2, watercolour 9 x 6" watercolour paper, March 2025

 

The first version had a realistic look to it, with waves, and the actual palm trees on the bottom of the composition. It has the look of a picture taken by a drone, or the view of bird soaring over head. While the realism is evident, I felt like the main gimmick, the tree-shadows that look like trees, was a little lost with all the other elements. The third version at the top seems to work best no matter how its interpreted.

World Inspired Landscapes: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines v1, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, March 2025

World Inspired Landscapes: Russia

 

Russia has some really cold parts up in Siberia, where the lakes are frozen solid. In the painting I show the cracked ice layer upon layer. In some cases there are methane bubbles that freeze in place creating even more interesting patterns. To paint the scene I applied successively darker layers, leaving narrow gaps between the washes to create depth and a sense of tension.

World Inspired Landscapes: Russia, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March 2025

Yellow bins, commuter corner

The last time I painted these yellow bins, there was no graffiti on them and it was a lot tidier. The bins are outside of City Fruterie by the train tracks where the commuter train picks up passengers and the train crossing bell rings every ten minutes. Instead of the graffiti tag, I added my initials on the front using the same style, and the year on the side (in blue scribble). To make the yellow pop, I surrounded it by purplish tones and variations of yellow that were duller or darker.

Yellow bin with tag, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4202b)

 

Shifting to the left, this scene looks down the back of the building with the commuter train coming by on the tracks, heading in a west direction. There was a lot going on with this painting, it was one of those paintings where I had a little regret being so ambitious, but stuck with it to the finish. Not many artists are going to set up in front of garbage bins and rubbish piles.

Bin and commuter train, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4206b)

 

This scene seemed impossible, and it basically was. I tried to paint the image of the yellow bins reflecting in the side of a passing car. The cars were moving making it hard to get the image right. I like the idea of painting reflections in the sides of cars, or the reflection on the windshield, there was a good from back in 2021 of a park reflecting in the side of an SUV. When the conditions improve, its still cold and windy, i will take another crack at something like this.

Yellow bins reflection in passing car, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4207a)

More scenes from the demo mall

For today's paintings the idea was to catch the last bit of sun before it set, so I rode down the Terrebonne bike path to what I call the 'demo mall', its an unsightly old strip mall that is slated for re-development soon. The first painting shows the old lashes-and-nails place, it still has most of the signage intact and even still has curtains. The paint painted bricks retain the original pinkish hue, which I recreated with dilute pyrol-orange (PO73). Using pyrol-orange to paint pink seems wrong, but according to MacEvoy's handprint.com, the source of all watercolour knowledge, he said pyrol orange has coral (salmon) undertones upon dilution. Trusting his assessment, I diluted the colour and it looks great here.

Lashes and nail shop, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4208a)

 

I've been looking for a good barber in town but unfortunately this one is shut down and ready for demolition. Right next to the lashes and nails shop, its decorated in all manner of beige and caramel tones, with a dark chocolatey sign painted with golden letters. In fact the whole colour scheme seemed like baby puke and it was not easy to coax a good painting from it. I infused the shadow with purple, and tried to texture other elements to distract. Its the hardest one to paint because the front is really long, and well, the colour scheme.

Coiffure entrance, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4208b)

 

This version mostly features the sign, and the sun-decals on the window. I was rather hoping for some nice weather but as the sun descended it became very cold and windy. I used the brand new palette that was featured in a recent blog, however being new, the paint beaded up and was harder to mix. It will take a few sessions to get it broken in, just not literally broken at least for awhile. You may wonder why I return to this doomed building so much, and so do I. The interesting thing is that the demo mall blogs have garnered the highest view counts this year so far, so the work is connecting with more than average viewers. In 2022 I returned to Dépanneur Diamond 10 several times to get the perfect painting and it also has a high view count, which was the whole idea. Photos, and google maps, retain the images of these structures, but an artist can only visit and paint on location until they are gone. The Dépanneur Diamond 10 is just an empty lot now. For the demo mall, perhaps a few more visits are warranted, its always been cold and miserable there, so hope it lasts at least until spring time.

Maurice Coiffure, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4207b)