Sunday, November 11, 2018

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 19th 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

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