Staying a bit closer to home today, this painting was done at the Benny farm community area which includes a sports complex with landscaping in the front. The path and black light post in the foreground heads to the front door of the sports center, and the curbing path heads up to a few benches and trees. In the distant background you see the monolithic green apartment building located in Monkland village, which was painted with a dilute mix of phthalo green (PG7) and carbon black (PBk6). To make the tree greens I used various yellow/orange mixes with phthalo green. The middle ground tree mix is benzi orange (PO36) with phthalo green blue (PG7). The lighter, grassy fields in the foreground includes goethite and some earth colours with benzi yellow (PY154). I just made one outside, it was pretty cold with the wind, although I was sitting at a tall retaining wall so mostly protected.
Rarely do I touch up a painting back at home, but in this case, the middle ground hills of grass has washed out so I made a slight adjustment there, and added some shadowing under the tree branches on the top left. Monet always bragged about doing all of his location painting on location, and some people questioned him about the claim. In some cases he finished paintings in the studio or made adjustments requested by his dealer or the clients. Van Gogh was known to made adjustments, he would even add ghost-like black figures in his landscapes back in the studio. One of his most famous paintings The Starry Night, was entirely done in the studio from his memory of a view out the window of a mental asylum!
Benny Sports Center, view of Paths, NDG 5 x 7" cold press watercolour, December 2020
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