Five Green Recycling Bins, Le Plateau Montreal

A recent landscape painting from a scene just down the street here in the Plateau Montreal. I was on a walk when I saw this scene, and immediately wanted to paint it. For those that follow my landscapes- painting garbage cans has always been a little bit of a theme. Here, the recycling containers were the inspiration... the colours were especially cool.

This painting was a lot harder than it looks. Half way through I was thinking, wow pretty high skill required to paint recycling bins behind a store. I started by establishing the outline with paint, and then filled in the base colours. Base colours are the ones "underneath" the real colour. As an artist you start to see these. For example, the brick has a base purple/grey, while the road in front has a base of blue. After the bases are dry you put on the coloured layers (brick red for example). Beginners could use this trick to create the 'volume' of a brick wall or road, it is also good for making skin tones where the base is lilac/blue and the colour is red/yellows.

9x12" cold press Aug. 2013