Park William-Hurst, Trees and Snow

On my way back from the bakery I stopped at a small park where I have made a few paintings before of the park structure, and the condo on Grand Boulevard. In fact, this is the same condo as in the previous painting but I subdued the colour considerably due to the low winter sun, and because I wanted the foreground trees to be the star of the show. The background took most of the time up, I made an outline, then filled in the brick colour, windows, cars and snow in the front. All the while I left the tree shape unpainted. The fun part at the end, was filling in the tree itself, I used umber (PBr7), indo blue (PB60), and carbon black (PBk6). There is some yellow-orange (PY110) in the branches to show the sunlight effect. The cars weren't perfect but I like the way their metallic shine and shadowing worked out. 

Some notes on the method, this is a fresh piece of 22x30" I cut up into 5 x 7.5" and some 10 x 11", then soaked for 35 minutes, much longer than before, dried and pressed flat under heavy books. It handled well- no buckling and absorbed paint nicely. I diluted the salt mix, and the water did not freeze, but still crystalized a bit. I think 20g salt and 100mL water may be ideal. A warm -2℃ blue sky today.

Park William-Hurst, Trees and Snow 5 x 7.5" cold press, watercolour, February 2021 (No. 2551a)