Sugar Shack, Cap Saint-Jacques Nature Park

On my recent cycling and painting trip out west I visited Cap Saint-Jacques Park and found this popular sugar shack in the woods. In winter time, the visitors line up and get maple sugar wrapped in snow on a stick. For now, the building was closed up for the season. 

To paint the sugar shack I used Winsor and Newton cold press 140lb paper cut down to 8 x 10" which is a common picture framing size. There was no pre-wetting or stretching of the paper this time. Getting the proportions and angles correct was key to the painting, the height of the main structure was the same as the width, and the top of the aluminum overhang was at the half way point. To judge the angles I held my paint brush up at arms length and then held the same angle to the paper to get it transcribed correctly. The A frame, roof perspective, and slope on the aluminum frame all had different angles. No pencil was used, just dilute carbon black and a No.2 brush to make a pale outline that would disappear in the final painting. 

Next I worked up the dense foliage in the background by first outlining the main tree trunks. I applied blobs of phthalo blue sapphire (PB15 from Holbein) to the sky areas and surrounded them by lemon yellow (PY175 Daniel Smith) with a touch of phthalo green yellow shade (PG36 Schmincke). As it dried I used sideways dry brush technique to apply perylene green (PBk31 Daniel Smith) withe lemon yellow. The last steps were to fill in the tree bark and other trunks which were various earth paints (PBr7 and PR101) with my favorite indothrene blue (PB60 Winsor and Newton). The foreground was created with similar techniques.

This was a longer paint than usual, it was almost 30 minutes and I hadn't even started the sugar shack. The colour of the wood was important to get right. I started with a mix of yellow ochre (PY43 DaVinci), isoindo orange (PY110 Daniel Smith) and Umber (PBr7 ShinHan). As it dried I applied umber (PBr7) with a red iron oxide mix consisting of red brown (PBr7 Sennelier), and red ochre (PR101 Holbein Irodori). Carbon black with umber was used for the final texturing and details. Burnt umber would have worked too, but it was not on my palette this trip.

The stack of wood required raw sienna but I also did not have it on my palette, so I approximated it with yellow ochre and a touch of the umber and iron oxide red. When dry, I detailed the chopped wood with umber and carbon black for the shadows, and various earth paints for the coloured pieces. It was important to leave the top of the log pile just free paper, so I could put on the sun highlight in at the end. For the sun highlight I went with indo yellow and benzi yellow, diluted with a touch of yellow ochre.

The greys were done using a mix of indo blue and caput mortum (PR101 sennelier), which is the same mix I use for cloud shadows. I added a touch of yellow ochre to the greys to keep them warm. Yellow ochre is great for this, it keeps the mix neutral and warms it up. If you add synthetic yellow to a grey mix it turns greenish or yellowish, so the ochre works out perfectly. Variations of grey, blue and magentas were used in the pipes and chimneys. 

Finally, with my derriere aching from sitting on a tree stump, I completed the reflective metal trough used in the winter to serve the maple-snow confectionery. It was done with pale versions of the reflected colours, then over-painted with the curved reflection of the support beams. The dark black elements juxtaposed to the metal were important to give the illusion of a glowing metal.

To complete the finish I went around the painting and filled in little empty spots and a few missing details. The term 'finish' refers to the quality of the product, in the old days this meant a smooth perfect illusion of reality, but now it just means a neat and tidy painting. I don't usually paint like this because the results tend to look wooden (no pun intended) or lifeless. To combat this, I kept the mixes clean, maximized textures, worked fast, and got the angles and proportions right. I hope that whomever looks at this painting can feel the experience, practically hear the birds chirping in the forest, and imagine the taste of maple syrup.

Sugar Shack, Cap Saint-Jacques Nature Park, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, June 2021 (No. 2740 not labeled yet, framed!)