Bench, Yellow Hydrant, Flowers, UWO campus, Ontario, Canada

Here is a small landscape I did when attending University of Western Ontario. At the time I was interested in painting regular objects like benches, fire hydrants and garbage cans, all of which appear in this example, done just in front of the hockey arena on the south part of campus. By keeping the subject matter rather simple, it put a lot of emphasis on the overall composition of the work and demanded an attention to detail. Each object, although not exciting in itself, fits together with the overall scene.

Around the time I was doing this kind of paintings I discovered a few basic tricks to create rich, colourful shadows. In this painting, the wall of the arena (with the diagonal lines going across it) was done with a mixture of cerulean blue (an opaque, sky blue) and rose madder genuine (a soft pink). While it was still wet I dropped in the lighter greens of the tree. The mixture of cerulean and rose madder is actually quite dark (compare the white edge of the painting to the wall), however I made it appear more luminous by putting really dark objects on it (the diagonal lines, the dark tree highlights, and the reflections in the glass windows). The end result is that the shadow appears colourful and light, and not dull and dreary.

Bench, Yellow Hydrant, Flowers, 5x7" cold press. 1999 (No. 0672)