CN Building, London, Ontario

Way back in the old days I painted this one, probably mid-nineties. This was the old CN building where the train stopped in London Ontario (not to be confused with London England), it was since destroyed and replaced with a more modern looking building with a red roof. The temperture on this day was extremely cold and the windchill was brutal. I rememberhow cold it was, and you can see in the painting at several locations where the paint actually froze.
In the foreground you see the train tracks, suggesting that I was sitting somewhere inside the railyard. I did have a penchant for sitting where I shouldn't in order to capture the correct angle.

At the time I had a lot of courage and would quite often paint outdoors in the winter, the trick was to put salt in the water and a little bit of vodka in the belly. Despite salt the paint would still freeze, and so would your brushes, and the paint on the pallette too. The other issue is that the paint dries pretty slow which is super annoying when you are freezing your arse off. So in this painting the most layering I did was on the shadow on the right side of the building... it is two layers. The more layers you do the more time it takes, so in the winter (or in the summer when it is humid) you want to keep it simple!

5x7" cold press, 1996 (No. 713)