Keeping Busy Paintings

 

'Keeping busy paintings' are great to do when you want to keep busy. For example when it is -10C outside and you pants can freeze. Also paints, they can freeze too. I was cleaning the palette after my frozen painting, this time mostly the blues, greens, and a bit of yellow and burnt sienna. I like the contrast between the blue-green of the tentacles and the yellow-green of the background. The illusion of sub beams coming through murky water was created with a yellow wash and a few diagonal brush strokes.

Tentacle Aquarium  4 x 8" watercolour paper, watercolour, December 2020

 

These paintings are actually on the back side of the dust cloud abstracts. I am running out of paper again, at least the cuttings and back sides I have used for the past few months. With the stores set to close again after Christmas I will have to stock up. I used several iron oxide (earth) pigments for the painting, including siennas and umbers.

Earthy Abstract 1 x 7" watercolour paper, watercolour, December 2020

 

In this abstract, I created an imaginary landscape using some compositional elements of Hiroshige the great Japanese illustrator from the 19^th century. He liked to include triangular elements at the bottom of the scene, like the berm of grass and outcropping of rocks. To make it fit with my lemon sunset theme, I included some yellow smiley faces in the rock near the curve in the path, a giant chicken-shaped apartment on the horizon, and the 3020 year signature. Next year I will label them 3021. 

Path to the Lemon Sunset 5 x 7" cold press watercolour, December 3020

Thinking about how to paint in the winter...I discovered a blog called Citizen Sketcher when I was looking for tips on how to keep water from freezing while doing watercolours. Of course, a Canadian landscape painter would know something about it! The blog mentioned alcohol and how it didn't really work to stop water from freezing, but it did mention that you need a good pair of boots like Baffin snow boots. I enjoyed looking at the art on the site, the artist also makes location paintings in Montreal including a scene of Snowdon Theater that I also painted years ago from a similar angle. After some more research, and drawing on my background as a scientist, it looks like glycerol is the best bet- with 50% glycerol I could probably do a painting at -30C, but in that case I'm going to need warmer clothes!