Vaccine and Painting

 

Today June 2, after some wrangling with the system I got the first vaccine dose in the morning and then did a few paintings in the nice weather. The sun was at the correct angle for the dépanneur (convenience store) on Fielding Avenue, but a mail truck was blocking the exact spot I wanted to stand on a shady corner. As I waited for the truck to leave, it occurred to me that maybe it belonged in the scene. I frantically got the outline down and tried to commit as much detail as possible to memory, and then of course it drove off. To capture the red I used pyrol red (PR254) with isoindo yellow (PY110), unfortunately I did not have pyrol vermilion (PR255) on my reduced palette, that would have been the exact shade, but the mix I created is pretty darned close. Same kind of thing for the caramel-coloured bricks, that is literally raw sienna (PBr7) but I had to use yellow ochre (PY43) with burnt sienna and Umber (PBR7). I like this painting a lot, but there was no natural elements like trees or grass. 

Mail Truck and Dépanneur, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2677)

To make up for the lack of trees and grass I stopped at the park, and painted a lot of green. The fence was all wobbly at the top which created an interesting line. The bench was iron oxide violet (caput mortum PR101), and raw umber with other shades of grey. My green mix got a little dark, I have to watch the phthalo green (PG36) and benzi orange (PO62) mixes they can get heavy, I should go benzi yellow (PY154), then phthalo green, then orange as needed. For the green shadows I added a greenish umber (PBr7). With summer upon us, I find it necessary to re optimize the mixes which seem different than spring. Sadly, trees are being cut down all over NDG due to worms, we can hear the wood chipper going frequently. You can see one of the tree stumps just above the bench, that is one less shadow.

One Less Shadow, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021