Lachine Canal, Red Buoy

The Lachine Canal used to be an important industrial conduit through the factories that lined the canal. Remnants of the industrial era remain, like the brick works factory in the background of the painting. Slowly but surely these locations are being consumed by luxury condos and a few nature-regeneration projects. In the foreground, the shore is populated by a variety of vines, yellow flowers, and grassy reeds. 

In oil painting colours can be applied over top of a base layer. If I was using oil paints the red buoy would have been easily painted over the blue water. Instead I started with the red buoy and then surrounded it by the water effect. When it all dried, the values had shifted, the red darker value than the blue, when in fact the red was lower value than the blue. This occurred because the red dried darker than I thought, and the blue lightened. Next time I will establish the blue first, check the value, then do the red last. All the little red reflections in the rippling water have to painted the same way, by going around (not over) the background.

Lachine Canal, Red Buoy, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2021 (No. 2810)