Saturday Painting Trip, NDG Chilly!

 

According to the forecast it will be hovering around zero for a little while- that is Celsius of course. Painting watercolours in cold weather is especially challenging due to the nature of the paint and how it mixes with water. Today I dropped off some items at the Renaissance store, and made this painting from the vantage point of the parking lot looking towards the 'Stinger's Dome' which is a sports enclosure normally used for winter sports by Concordia University. It stayed up all year this year, which was an oddity caused by COVID-19. There wont likely be any sports played in there due to the campus restrictions. It's been awhile since I painted in such weather, my plan here was a little too ambitious but I like the results. 

NDG Stinger Dome with Trees 5.5 x 7.5" cold press, watercolour, November 2020 (No. 2451)

By the way, I completed naming and numbering nearly every painting I ever did, there may have been a few I gave away or sold but the list contains virtually everything. That means today's paintings numbers 2451^st, 2452^nd and 2453^rd are up to date. Not that anybody is counting! I've still got the work of typing the information into the spreadsheet which will take an hour or two. The next step is to update the blog with the catalogue numbers. 

Here is the second painting done on long hill, probably a protective landfill that was built around a factory of some sort. I made some adjustments for example, not doing much outline, and using a big brush. The sun was directly behind me casting a long shadow of me and my bike, unfortunately the paint was not drying well in this weather so it got a little muddy. There was a lot of orange used here including iron oxide red/brown (PR1010), isoindolone yellow (PY110) and raw sienna (PBr7) with phthalo green and blue for complement.

NDG Orange Building with Field, 5 x 7.5" cold press, watercolour, November 2020 (No. 2452)

 

Painting on location sometimes requires adjustments on the fly depending on weather conditions. It occurred to me that the approach I had used all summer was not going to work in this low light, cold weather environment. In this painting I made more adjustments to the methods, there were no outlines at all, I started with the body colour of the two buildings, and made it darker than necessary. What you see as bright coral in the front building, looked like a muddy brown when I first applied it to the white paper. By establishing the big shapes and colour first it dried a bit faster, and allowed me to apply some shadowing, trees, and window details. I think this quick and dirty approach is going to work better as it continues to get colder. My gloves were not up to the task though, need to wear heavier ones next time. 

NDG, Sunset on Parking Lot, 5 x 7.5" cold press, watercolour, November 2020 (No. 2453)