Fall Fences and Beyond

 

Being cooped up so much is not much fun for anyone. This painting is a metaphor for the lock down, it was done in my backyard area looking towards Somerled Street. If you follow my blog (or live here) you may recognize the auto mechanic building across the street. Most of the fall leaves are gone now, this tree hardly had any left. I used carbon black throughout the painting to create all the earthy neutrals. I started by painting the fence and then filled in the rest. 

Backyard Fence, Somerled, NDG, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, October 2020

 

Fences have occasionally been a theme over the years. With the new catalogue it was easy to pull up a few examples of paintings with fences featured in the composition. In this case it was winter and extremely cold to the point of the paint partially freezing. The orderly fence was a great contrast against the wild tree. It is very similar to the one I just did of our backyard. 

 France, Segny, Blue Gate and Tree, 7.5 x 11" cold press, 2009 (No. 1247)

Ok, this one wasn't actually a fence but it had a similar strucure. There was another bench just like it that I was sitting on. Between the slats there is a very narrow gap to fill in the colours. I was using very dark mixes during this phase of painting, mostly due to cerulean blue. It is a nice sky blue on its own but can be muddy in mixes. I was convinced that it would make everything look light and bright but it made things look heavy. 

London UWO Bench and curved sidewalk, 5 x 8" cold press, 2000 (No. 0637)

 

 Now this is a fence.  Said crocodile Dundee. A palisade actually. There are no gaps between these tall pointed pieces of rounded lumber. It was a very hot day, and dry too the grass was like saw dust. The dry wood tones are spot on, considering my lack of training is was neat that I could make such a variety of brown and grey. It is actually tough to do because the paints in watercolour tend to be super bright, so you have to mix them in the right proportions to get that neutral grey/brown. In the recent painting (top of blog) I just used umber tinted with carbon black and some indo blue. In this painting I probably mixed aureolin, rose madder, french ultramarine.

Kingston, fort palisade, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, 1998 (No. 0326)