University of Glasgow, Scotland

University of Glasgow is a very old University around five hundred years! As a consequence they do not have water fountains anywhere and I remember quite well running out of water and having to go back into town to buy bottled water. The scarcity of drinking water seemed silly considering just how much rain they have. Armed with water I could complete this painting, although in a dramatic twist of irony it did start raining in the middle of my session. The last twenty minutes there was a drippy mist coming down as you can see on the grass at the bottom. I had to really rush, and when I put the painting away in my bag to escape the downpour it got messed up a bit in the middle. Considering how much detail there was in the architecture I did the best I could to rush out the bricks windows and doors. The brick was that sandy orange and the grass was a brilliant emerald.

5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour September 2018

Canal with Swan, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Swans were swimming along with other aquatic fowl on this narrow canal. Lily pads gently rocking back and forth in the light wind, water rippling. The apartment block in the background (barely visible) reflecting off the water's undulating surface. The canal itself, a murky, sepia brown. I knew I had to try an make a painting of this scene, and there was a convenient bench next to the canal where I could sit. This is the second try, the first attempt did not work out so well but I thought about it for a long time and came up with another technical approach. To be honest, this is probably the highest technical difficulty I have ever attempted on location or even in the studio. The water has several things going on- the murky brown colour coming from the sediment, the blue door, white windows, orange brick reflecting off the surface, the ripples of water blowing in a distinctive pattern and catching reflections from the sky. Then we have several lighter tone shapes in the swan, the two birds and the lily pads which have to be depicted on top of a darker background. Remember that there is no white paint here, so I had to get the complicated water effect around the tight spaces of the swan and lily pads. The adjustment I made in this version was to make the outline of the lily pads first and then paint around them. I also lifted some paint to create the lily pad stems disappearing into the muck.

5.5 x 7.5 hot press, September 2018

Amstel River, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Along the way to the conference I had to cross the Amstel river which divides the East part of the city. It was a very foggy day but it was not raining that morning giving me the chance to sit down on a staircase and do this picture. I am looking north, on the bottom of the scene is a launching dock for a rowing club. People were very active around the river, they were jogging along paths, and rowing up and down on the water, and of course, there were hundreds of cyclists here getting to and fro. It was very noisy to, because the rush hour traffic was at its peak.  Mind you, their version of rush hour has about one third the number of cars that we have in Montreal because so many people take public transit or ride their bikes. To get the sky right I actually went over it a second time a few days later because it was way too light in the first version. The sky and the water really felt like they were one continuous object.

5" x 7.5" hot press, Watercolour. Sept. 3 2018

Boerenwetering Canal Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Google maps helped me find out the name of this canal, it is near the RAI convention center where I was attending an immunology conference. I walked through the woods that you see at the top right of the painting but couldn't find a place to sit with a clear view of the canal so I kept walking and found an overpass that had public seating facing the direction of the canal. I have a feeling this seating was intended for homeless people because it was shielded from view and contained quite a bit of rubbish and I didn't feel all to safe there to be honest. There was also a highway that was right behind me and it was very noisy so I wore earplugs to mute the sound a bit. The image shows the canal on a top-down perspective, with the wonderful variety of boats that have different shapes and colours. I especially liked the reflection on the water, the whole forest was reflecting off, with just a gentle breeze causing ripples. This painting was very complex and stretched me to the max, by the time I finished my body was pretty sore I could barely get up. I usually finish a painting in one go, like 20-30 minutes this one probably went closer to an hour to complete. 5.5 x 7.5" hot press

NDG/Côte St. Luc Montreal

When I returned from the trip to Europe and Scotland I had plenty of practice painting scenes in the rain or between rain storms. There was no exception back in Montreal. The first one I did was interrupted by rain, you can see the little dots on the painting where the paint was still wet when the rain droplets hit the paper. In a way, the dots gave a rain effect to the picture. I came back a day or two later to the same spot and finished the painting as you see it here. The birds on the wire were only there on the first day and they flew off pretty quick when the rain came, so I added them from memory on the second sitting. 
 The impressionist painters of the 19^th century had the same problem, that is, the weather was constantly changing and when painting outside you are at its mercy. The masters like Monet would have several paintings going at once so he would pick one that suited the weather conditions of the day and keep working on it. Van Gogh used to work on paintings outdoors, and then put in finishing touches during the off season, in fact many of the bright sunny skies in his paintings may have been added afterwards.

7x 10" hot press (block), September 2018

Ringvaart Canal near Hotel Casa, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

It is always special to see real paintings in a gallery as opposed to seeing images of paintings on the computer screen, smart phone, or even an art book. I had studied Vincent van Gogh in high school and of course seen his work in various reproductions, but it was not until our recent trip to Amsterdam that I got the chance to see his paintings up close in the Van Gogh museum, or at least as up close as you can get in a crowded museum! When I saw his paintings in real life I appreciated what he had done with the colours and brush work. I also noticed that he had a particular way of giving each part of the painting a sense of life, whether it was a tree, a mountain, the sky, a hay field, the sun, a sunflower. When we got back from the museum it was raining a little bit but I was determined to go out and use something of what I had learned from seeing van Gogh's work. In this small watercolour the trees are shown along the canal (which you can not see in this view it is behind the berm of grass) each with its own character. Its like the trees could walk off on their own! The green of the grass is more luminescent than it was in real life, and the red of the roof gives it a nice complementary colour. The tree leaves are infused with green, orange, and a variety of yellows. For good measure I included an ever-present cyclist whipping by on a bike path so fast that I could only capture the back wheel. I kept the figure simple and almost all black which is the way van Gogh painted his figures. It is not signed because the rain picked up and I had to get out of there. The other cool thing is that I stupidly forgot to bring water with me, so I used some water from a nearby puddle to make this painting, there was a bit of sand in it. A real Amsterdam painting through and through.

5.5 x 7.5 " hot press, Watercolour, September 6^th 2018