Down in Verdun the urban sprawl is seemingly endless. However, there is plenty of green space interspersed hence the nick name 'green and brown' which sounds a little bit like 'verdun' when said in French. This painting was done in a backyard parking lot area behind some condos, looking west towards the setting sun. The clouds were fluffy like cotton and had a slight tinge of orange with deep purple centers. The bottom of the clouds took on a pink glow. The crab-apple tree branches on the right were meant to be the main composition but the clouds were so interesting that I left the trees to act as a frame to the sky in the background.
It was cool and humid making the paint difficult to work with. I made some adjustments to get these paintings to a good standard. For example, I created most of the painting out of a simple two layer approach and omitted a lot of details like the chain link on the fence, the stairs on the condo, bark texture, grass texture, etc. The blue in the sky is a mix of phthalo blues and a bit of indo blue, its taken all year for me to figure out how to use those paints and its finally working out more reliably.
Verdun, Backyard Crab Apple Tree and Clouds, 8 x 10" cold press watercolour, November 2020
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