This palette cleanser was done after yesterday's painting trip, the palette was a mess of brown blue and salt. Some colours like isoindothrone yellow make a big mess in the winter, I may have to swap it out as I learn more about which paints work below zero. The composition of this painting was inspired by one of the Saturday paintings done of the bridge over the canal from Ville St. Pierre. I made an extensive study of Hiroshige including some copies of his work, and recently started to study Hokusai who was best known for Under the Wave off Kanagawa, better known as the 'Great Wave' which was part of his groundbreaking 36 views of Mount Fuji series completed in the 19th century. Hiroshige and Hokusai made extensive use of triangles in their compositions, that is, they shaped mountainsides, trees, rivers, rooftops, or pathways into triangular forms usually at the bottom of the painting.
A good example is in Hokusai's print of The Jewel River in Musashi Province, the shore line at the bottom is a triangle, and so is of course Mount Fuji. Before Saturday's painting trip, I studied a book Hokusai illustrated called 100 view of Mount Fuji which contains some of the most incredible illustrations of all time, you can see a digital version on the website. The Lachine Canal and St. Lawrence river along with some well placed trees allowed me to recreate the dramatic triangular compositions reminiscent of the old Japanese masters. In the palette cleanser #51 I also used the trick, in the pink sidewalk which cuts a diagonal across the bottom left of the painting.
9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour, January 2021
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