Walkley Street, NDG, Montreal

Is this the first watercolour painting of Walkley street ever? Nobody knows, but it is the first one I have done! It was something I wanted to do for awhile but just couldn't find the right scene since Walkley street is basically a long row of condo style housing with a lot of trees. This scene caught my eye because of the flower bush and the large tree casting shadows over the building and the lawn.

Painting details like these flowers is very difficult in watercolour because you cannot put lighter paint on top of darker paint. This time I tried something different, I made the shape of the bush in red/pink first, keeping the top right of the bush lighter to suggest a highlight. Then I put the green on top to create the outline of the flowers. The results were good I think, the bush looks together and realistic. The rest of the painting was just there to fill in, I wanted the tree to have bright yellow. There is no sky shown in this painting but you still get the feel of a bright blue day.

5 x 7 " cold press watercolour, June 2018

Bakery in NDG, Montreal

A few doors down from where we live in NDG there is a little, old fashioned bakery and deli that sells pastries pasta lunch meat, sauces and that sort of thing. I tried shopping there once but it seemed to be more of a social club where the customer talks endlessly to the shopkeeper and tries a samples of everything before actually buying anything. The good news is that they give you free samples while you wait! The unique colour of the brick work and the contrasting bright colours of the sign and awning caught my attention for this painting. Across the street is the Royal Bank, but I put the current year on the sign instead!

Painting these kind of ivory colours in watercolour is very challenging like you see in the bricks. I accomplished the effect with a layer of warm yellow-orange to give it the brightness, then overlayed some neutral greenish-grey, very thin. When dry I looked at the actual bricks and adjusted the tone a bit using a third layer of very thin warm yellow in places to give is a shimmer. The brick detail is done in warm grey with a smaller brush. The effect is better observed in the original painting, but the scan version here does it justice.

5 x 7" cold press watercolour, June 2018

River in Ontario

Here is a recent painting I did in Ontario while I was out there at a Science Conference. There wasn't much time off so I just made one painting near the hotel I was staying at close to campus. Since I left there not much has changed, except there was a lot of construction going on, so much that I thought I was back in Montreal.

I tried to copy the old master style of painting these kind of scenes. To do this I kept the brush strokes thick and colourful, and used a composition reminiscent of Monet. The person on the embankment just sort of showed up for a moment, probably looking for cans and bottles. I made their shirt red just to give some contrast to the green.

5 x 7" June 2018, cold press watercolour