Saturday Painting Trip: From Snow to Rain

 

The weather report today basically said to stay home. Blizzard in the morning transitioning to rain in the afternoon. Not exactly the watercolour painters ideal forecast. Undaunted, I braved the uncertainties, dawned a rain jacket, brought an umbrella, and strapped on my Baffin snow boots. I had prepared a piece of paper with some masking fluid dots, that is a liquid latex resist that watercolour painters use to protect the paper, you paint over it and then peel it off at the end. This painting was done during a snow storm, standing under a narrow overhang in front of the pharmacy looking east along Somerled Avenue. The billboard with my initials on it is the same one I painted at night. It was hard to know what the painting would look like in the end, the latex dots were a shiny dark orange, but when peeled off at home, they revealed bright white dots creating the illusion of snow.

Blizzard on Somerled Avenue 5 x 7.5" cold press, watercolour, February 2021 (No. 2571)

 

My main target for the day was the Villa-Maria metro station, part of the orange line just north of Vendome. Not surprisingly, the whole thing was surrounded with construction fences. By now the snowfall had turned to sleet, wet snow was coming down, which eventually gave way to a misty rain. I stood under a pine tree to get some shelter, but great chunks of wet snow were falling off the branches above me from time to time hitting the painting. I had not prepared a second sheet of paper with the liquid masking fluid, so I painted the snow flakes the hard way, using brushwork. In the end, this is probably the most 'Montreal' painting I have ever done. Crappy weather, construction, cold wet day. I like the snow piles here, I got them good and dirty.

Villa-Maria Metro Station, Orange Line, 5 x 7.5" cold press, watercolour, February 2021 (No. 2572)

 

Determined to do a third painting, I found this scene looking northwest up the Decarie merge lane. Snow plows were rumbling by spraying everything with dirty wet snow including the 'End Fin' sign and trees. Luckily I found a place to stand about three meters from the road, and I managed to secure my umbrella handle in my jacket so it covered my head without using hands. I omitted the word End on the sign just because of space, and to adhere to our strict language laws that say English should be smaller font than french. Also my hand was freezing, having taken my right glove entirely off to get the painting done in style. The orange (PO73) came out a little more red in the scan, I will try to adjust the paint next time so it scans the right shade. A Montreal urban painter needs to know this colour well. (No. 2573)

La Fin du Monde 5 x 7.5" cold press, watercolour, February 2021