The Factory, Lachine Canal, Montreal

Trees have appeared in most of my paintings recently, but in this scene there were none to be found. It is still important for my vision of these works to include nature, to show the interaction between nature and humanity, so I put in the tiny sliver of grass on the bottom left. The factory was something I have wanted to paint for years now but several things were holding me back including heavy traffic on the street, noise and dust from the actual factory, and a slight lack of skill to take on such a subject. This year because of the pandemic lockdown there is practically no traffic on the street here, and the factory is shut down. My skill set improved this year after some intense drawing practice and a reboot of my paint palette.

The orange pylon is one of my signature landscape elements, along with garbage cans and sidewalks! I started this painting with a black outline (bloodstone genuine), then the first thing I did was the orange cone with pyrrole vermillion hue (PR255 Schmincke) a new colour I am using, got it from Avenue Arts, it was mixed with some vanadium yellow. The other thing that worked nearly perfectly was the colour of the green metal warehouse which was a mix of iron oxide red (PR101/PBr7 mix) and  phthalo blue (PB15). The colours you see in the painting of the warehouse, brick middle portion, and duct work are just as I saw them. The big pipe on top was a caramel/greenish look, I will have to work out a better mix for that.

I hope to return to this location on the weekend, this scene is just a corner of the factory. 

7 x 10" rough press, block. May 2020