Memory of burger

 A few years ago I visited Sutton and ate at a local burger and beer joint. I ordered their bacon cheeseburger with beer sauce, which you can see on the plate. Upon return to Montreal I made a detailed sketch of the environment as I remembered it. There was an impressive array of earth colours and interesting textures. This study is just a practice run at the burger, I am planning on doing a 16 x 20" version of the scene to include all the surroundings. Looking at the painting, it makes me kind of hungry! To make the bun colour I mixed yellow ochre (PY43) with red ochre/red brown (PR101) to create a colour that is very similar to raw sienna. Many of the earth paints you can buy are simply mixesthat the company makes for the artist. I find that yellow ochre, red ochre, raw umber and green umber can mix almost all of the other earth colours.

Memory of burger (Study) watercolour 6 x 8" cold press, March  2022 (No. 2997b)

Inspired by Breakfast

 My favorite breakfast is peanut butter and banana on toast! It seemed quite original until I learned that Elvis Presley like to eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Great minds think alike. Actually the painting was purely an abstract idea and only took shape when the peanut was painted, and the object in the middle looked like a fried egg with a banana on the side. The variety of reds in the background include perylene maroon (PR179), Ferrari red (PR254), pyrol orange (PO73), and some quinacridones (PR122, PV19). I used to rely on alizarin crimson (PR83), winsor red (also PR254), permanent magenta (PV19 rose) and  rose madder genuine. But two of those pigments are not at all stable. the real find was perylene maroon, which I discovered from reading handprint.com. It is the colour of a freshly hand picked strawberry and excellent for landscapes.

PB + B,  watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March  2022 (No. 2989b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Ethiopia

 Ethiopia is located in the horn of Africa on the edge of the great rift, and surrounded by many other countries. It seems that Ethiopia is one of the few countries to have mostly resisted colonization by repelling Italian attacks around the turn of the century. Historically the region was a seat of power on the continent and is now one of the most populated countries in the world. On a closer-to-home note, Cilei and I have visited a famous Ethiopian restaurant on Sherbrooke called East Africa, run by a Mom and pop team. There you will encounter a pungent odor of onions and garlic and the most interesting cuisine. They make a variety of stewed dishes and spinach puree, all served on a giant plate with an equally giant sour-dough 'pancake'. Noticeably absent were utensils, the idea was to tear off pieced of the 'pancake' and scoop up the food with it, while sharing the plate with the other people at the table. I just looked it  up and it is actually called injera a pancake-like bread.  

When researching African landscapes I regularly found images of Ethiopia's sulfur ponds. They are fantastically coloured geographical features unique to the region. Local tour guides bring tourists there to see, and appear to take many selfies in the area even though it seems unsafe to me. Sulfuric acid is pretty serious, we use it in the laboratory and it can be very strong if wafted. I made a few test paintings and found it difficult to get the right colour register for the lemon/lime sulfur pools, it required a slightly neutralized mixture. Including the blue sky helped to create the illusion since as a viewer, you are confronted with the visual paradox of yellow and green water in an otherwise arid environment. 

Versions 1 and 2 were on watercolour paper (No. 2987a,b), they showed a top down view on the sulfur pools surrounded by earthy strips of land. 

World Inspired Landscapes: Ethiopia version 3, watercolour 6 x 8" cold press, March 2022 (No. 2997a)

Train Bridge, Windy Day

I made it pretty far down the bike path on the Lachine Canal today, you can see the path on the left of this painting still mostly covered in snow. To the right is the canal which still had ice on it. I underestimated the cold today and the paint started to freeze up. Mid-painting I was basically pushing slush around the paper and hoping for the best. Luckily the painting dried just as nice as when I was doing it which is never a guarantee when the painting is covered in ice crystals. It created quite a nice textural effect, and you can almost feel the cold wind whipping up the canal. To paint the grass colour I simply used yellow (PY154) and a touch of black (PBk6). For years I struggled to make this colour because I was convinced it was green, but it is in fact dark yellow. Little discoveries like this have really improved my painting over the years.
 

Train Bridge, Windy Day, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, March 2022 (No. 3080)

Blue Screening

In the old days when a computer crashed it had the so called blue screen of death. You knew it was trouble when the screen turned blue. It still can happen even with modern computers although they are much more stable now. I just  made up this painting on the spot, felt like painting but had no good ideas to work on. I used to use this method to produce art. That is, a lack of any method. You just start with a blank piece of paper and start painting. This one is actually on the back of another painting, just to minimize the feeling that I might be wasting paper. A lot of my output is on the backs of paintings, maybe about 300 out of the approximate 3000 paintings are double sided!
 

Blue Screening, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3081b)

New bridge over Decarie with Cars

There is a relatively new bridge over the Decarie expressway, it continues St. Jacques all the way past the Hospital and to Ville St. Henri. It takes a lot of the traffic off Upper Lachine Road and Sherbrooke and gives better access to the hosiptal. I found a place to stand on a small patch of grass next to the sidewalk with a good view of the bridge with cars, and the tangle of highways to the right which you see as a sliver of detail. There was some graffiti on the highway wall, which I turned into my signature towards the bottom right of the painting. To paint the clouds I found a new trick, I painted the body of the cloud with a wet in wet fade, then let it partially dry, then surrounded it with the background sky. With some practice I should be able to do this in successive layers to create the effect of a partially cloudy day. Luckily I decided to head home because there was an ominous cloud coming from the west which got me wet on the ride.
 

New bridge over Decarie with Cars, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, March 2022 (No. 3078)

World Inspired Landscapes: Eswatini

Eswatini is a small landlocked country in the south of Africa formerly known as Swaziland. The King of the country decided recently to change the name so as to reflect their history and people since Swaziland was a colonial name given to them by the British. Eswatini is the only African country with a strict monarchy government. They have elections for administrative posts but the King can hire or remove who he pleases. As with many of the African countries, Eswatini is rick in natural resources and agriculture which make up most of their exports. The landscape consists of rolling hills and wide valley plains of grass. Impressive trees dot the landscape. As I study the African landscapes I see some similar themes like the pointy volcanic mountains, and the iron oxide reddish clays. No wonder the first use of iron oxide pigments for art was in Africa, they are rich in the mineral and have a history of cave painting that goes back tens of thousands of years.  

The colour scheme of this painting is a range of olive-greens to brown-oranges with golden yellows in between. I have been exploring the earth paints and studying colour mixing, which has made it possible to create a rich variety of colours in this area of the colour gamut. Many of the colours are middle chroma, that is they contain some grey, others are dark value, like in the tree trunk and distant trees. When painting it helps to think about hue, value, and chroma as three separate ingredients than can be mixed together in clever ways. 

World Inspired Landscapes: Eswatini, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, March 2022 (No. 3079a)

World Inspired Landscapes: Guatemala

 Guatemala is among the most populated countries in the Americas and has the fastest growing population. It stretches from the Gulf of Honduras to the Pacific Ocean and is bordered by Mexico, Belize and El Salvador. After centuries of Spanish rule, Guatemala suffered from a long and bloody civil war that gave way to dictatorships and finally, a legitimate democracy. Their economy continues to grow but poverty remains a major problem. One of the main source of income is actually from Guatemalans who live in the United States, Canada and other countries who send money back to their families. Like most of the central American countries it consists of rolling hills and steep volcanic mountains, with some flat lands and beaches around the coasts. In the painting, I depicted a volcano on the horizon with undulating jungle hills in the foreground. I made two studies before this one to get the colours and composition right. The main adjustment was omitting yellow and going with magenta, red and violet. Lowering the foreground elements was also helpful to create a sense of depth. So far, I have been painting the World Inspired series more or less in alphabetical order, but the travel book I have right now covered El Salvador, Belize, Honduras and Guatemala so I decided to do this painting while the inspiration was still fresh.

World Inspired Landscapes: Guatemala version 3, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March  2022 (No. 2989a)

There were two smaller versions of this with similar compositions and colour schemes (No. 3082a, No. 3082b)

Remains of the Tree, Harley Street

 

On my way back from lunch break I made this painting on Harley street where there are rows of condos, the grocery store called Marché Fruiterie Cité, Snowdown Bakery, a small community center, and the Caribbean dominoes clubhouse. In this scene you can mostly see the congested parked cars and four story condo buildings. The tree in the center had all of its upper branches cut off, but the tree was never replaced. Many trees were cut down in this neighborhood but not replaced which seems at odds with the active tree-replacement campaign up on the other side of the train tracks. I like the way there seems to be a glow coming up from the base of the building, and the tall sweeping tree on the left which helps break the symmetry. The cars are not bad either, I am slowly getting better at depicting the cars.

Remains of the Tree, Harley Street, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, March 2022 (No. 3079b)

A few Less Shadows

The city recently had to cut down some of the century-old trees at Trenholme park on account of the tree worms. They announced on a billboard that they would be investing in replanting new trees to replace the old ones. There are dozens of squirrels in this park, so a few of them have less places to live. In the painting, you see a large tree stump where one of the giants used to be. After the snow melted, the grass is a soggy blend of last year's leaves and mud. It has been awhile since I saw the grass an leaves, hopefully the weather will continue to improve and I can go back and paint in the park when the new trees arrive. 
A few Less Shadows, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3081a)

World Inspired Landscapes: Estonia

To the north west corner of Europe lies Estonia, a small country located near Finland and Latvia. Nowadays, it is a part of the European Union and NATO and has a prosperous high tech economy. It has a long history of being invaded by its neighbors but has been stable since the early 1990's with the collapse of the soviet union. The landscape of Estonia is mostly flat, with great expanses of forests and lakes. In the painting, a wetland is home to a lily pond, grasses, a leaping frog, and a specter-like heron hiding in the reeds. I have had some practice painting lily ponds, for example out in the west island Montreal, and the canals of Amsterdam. 

The painting started with an outline of the shore line and lilies. Then I filled in the warm yellow-green and tan colours of the landscape followed by the tri-colour water. When looking at a pond on an angle like this, the closest areas seem brown because you can see through the water to the bottom, the lilies have stems that go to the bottom. Further out, the sky reflects of the water which transitions from a dark brown, to a dark blue, then sky blue and cyan at the top part. If there are clouds then the clouds reflect in the water as greyish blobs. Finally, there are ripples of water, and the lilies themselves to finish. I always think of Monet when painting water lilies.
 

World Inspired Landscapes: Estonia, watercolour 6 x 8" cold press, March 2022 (No. 3001b)

Bike Ride, Soggy Day

Before doing a bit of shopping at the mall I walked around Cabot Square, a small park near the Atwater Metro station. Dozens of colourful balloons, kind of like tye-dye beach balls, adorned the trees. They stood out against the dreary backdrop of the black, grey and brown.There was no blue in the scene until a bus parked in the middle-ground and I quickly sketched it in. The tree trunk was nearly black, and had streaks of dark olive green and rusty oranges. The ground was partly thawed creating puddle and heaps of dirt-encrusted snow. It was a technical painting, the background had to be painted entirely between the tree branches and beach balls. I threw a few walnuts to the squirrels.

Cabot Square, Colourful Decorations, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3088)

 

On the way back I spied this scene of the auto mechanic on Maisonneuve, the same one I painted last year in the snow. This time there was a yellow mustang parked there, although in the painting it looks more like a pinto! The scene was damp, dreary and everything was covered in a layer of silt and dirt from the thaw. The yellow car and red brick really stand out against the muck and mire, kind of like the tree-balls in the earlier painting. I did this on a new block of watercolour paper called Fluid 100, it is a 140lbs cold press, cotton, acid-free,  8 x 10" format with 15 sheets. It handles beautifully and really holds the paint. The modern papers are excellent compared to some of the older fashioned brands.

Maisonneuve Auto Mechanic, Yellow Car, watercolour 6 x 8" cold press, March 2022 (No. 3001a)

Changing of the Seasons

The rain subsided this morning and I could get out for a walk down Walkley street where it meets Sherbrooke, and then over to Montclair street which was good views of the downtown. I was looking for a scene that would not possible when the leaves come out, for example, here the distant city view will be obscured by the trees in the middle-ground come spring and summer. There are a few more scenes like this I may try to capture before the leaves arrive, which will be a month or so from now. Monclair slopes down steeply here, creating a staircase-like shape of the houses. The houses are mostly duplex and triplex and have that boxy look with deep orange bricks. The white tarpaulin behind the car is one of those snow-garages. The black pickup truck just in front of the sedan actually drove off, the owner and his kids took a look at the painting and seemed to enjoy it. It happens from time to time that people will talk to me, perhaps with the pandemic abating things are getting back to normal a little more.

Montclair Street, City View, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3089)

World Inspired Landscapes: Eritrea

Eritrea is a small African country located on the horn next to Ethiopia and Djibouti. Geographically it is situated at the end of the great African right valley on the coast line of the Red Sea which creates a wide variety of landscapes. Most scenes that I could find on the internet consisted of great areas of rolling hills textured with swirling earth and clay patterns. Many mountains had ancient terraces probably from some long ago mountain agriculture. This country would have been part of the Egyptian empire, but in recent times it was an Italian and then French colony until its relative independence in the 1960's. 

I used several layers in this painting beginning with the relief of the hills, then the swirling earth patterns in abstract form, then the tree overlay. The tree trunks are actually purple but they turn out grey when overlapped with the brown. The sky is done with the Japanese style where there is a dark band across the top.
 

World Inspired Landscapes: Eritrea, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, March 2022 (No. 3006)

Snow melt, Parking lot

The snow has almost completely melted now and it is set to rain a bit this week. All seems rather optimistic for March. I made this painting on my way to the donation store, I did a bit of office cleaning and had some items to donate to goodwill. To get there one cuts through the Reno Depot parking lot and hops up a small concrete embankment to reach the Renaissance parking lot. I have made a few paintings in this area because there are some good sight lines and views of NDG. The snow was a dirty brown with streaks of black. There were actually a few cars in the parking lot but I concentrated on the details of the background and remaining snow piles.
 

Snow melt, Reno Depot Parking lot, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3101)

Montreal, Memory Lane

This painting is notable as the first location painting I remember doing in the spring thaw of 2005, after I moved 'back' to Montreal. Of course, I was born there but our family transplanted to Ontario in the 1980's. The building was some sort of military facility or museum, and as I was painting a person in a pink coat walked past, creating an interesting contrast with the salmon-coloured bricks. The canon was fun to paint, I have painted many canons in the past such as California, Stratford Ontario, and Gibralter.  There were a bunch of cool paintings from Gibraltar that are worth doing a blog one day.

Montreal, Des Pins x Henri Julien, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2005 (No. 1065)

 

This painting was done a bit later, it would have been around the time that I moved our of the Mile End to NDG. It was raining hard this day but I was compelled to make a painting. Finding a store overhang for shelter, I could get a decent painting out, with a subtle reflection on the pavement. There is a lot of textural details in this painting, and I can even make out a parking meter, a famous garbage can, and a street sign.

Montreal, Fairmont Avenue, School, Rainy Day, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2013 (No. 1079)

 

Here is a scene of a Greek Church on Hutchinson street, about half way between where I lived in Mile End, and the Mount Royal park. The colours were very interesting, the bricks were an eggshell white while the facade was an array of blues. I don't paint religious building anymore, so these kinds of paintings are a rarity in the collection. Structures in general are pretty hard to get right, you end up trying to do an architectural drawing and then filling in the colours! Anyways, these paintings bring back some memories.

Montreal, Hutchinson Street, Greek Church, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2013 (No. 1080)

Kyoto Japan, Rainy Day

 

While in Japan many years ago I had the pleasure of riding a bike around for a day making paintings along the way. Kyoto is surrounded by a pristine, clear river and convenient bike paths that seemed to go on forever. It was unfortunately a rainy day which limited how much I could do. I spent the better part of the afternoon drinking tea and enjoying the view from the comfort of a local cafe. This painting was done early in the bike ride, it shows a jumble of signs in Japanese which I did my best to transcribe into the painting. Who knows, maybe a Japanese person could see that it says 'car wash' or something. The granular effects you see in the clouds and the mountain, a kind of grainy appearance, were created with cerulean blue (PB35) mixed with french ultramarine (PB29), and phthalo green (PG7) in the mountains. The foreground elements give an impression of the busy scene. Since painting the stations of the Montreal metro, I improved my 'urban sketching' quite a bit. Would be interesting to go back to Japan in the future, maybe during cherry blossoms.

Japan, Kyoto, Yellow Signs, Mountain, watercolour 9 x 12" cold press, 2006 (No. 1214)

World Inspired Landscapes: Equatorial Guinea

 

On the west coast of central Africa lies a small but wealthy country called Equatorial Guinea. Like most African countries it was under colonial rule until the 1960's when it became independent, although it is under the control of the same ruling family until this day. The vast wealth of the country comes from rich deposits of crude oil, unfortunately the money is all in the corporations and ruling elite leaving the average citizen living in extreme poverty. Next to oil, the economy is driven by selling wood from their forests. Equatorial Guinea is part of the Congo basin and has, or had, tropical rainforest. When I researched this small country I saw many jungle and waterfall scenes, much like Costa Rica, but these scenes were localized to a large island where the tourists visit, and apparently take lots of pictures. The painting I did captures the mainland, where it is common to see cleared forest and scarred land. 

I used a range of granular paints to give this painting a feel of wild energy. The stark border is bone black (PBk9) which forms little patches of dark, like pepper. The river contains caput mortum (PR101) edged with raw umber natural (PBr7). The exposed earth patches are burnt ochre (PR102) and Venetian red (PR101). I find these granulating paints are tough to use, but with the right design and space, they can be very effective. Caput mortum also makes fantastic greys with indo blue (PB60) as seen in the distant mountain.

World Inspired Landscapes: Equatorial Guinea, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March  2022 (No. 2990a)

Remarkable Values

This painting was partly inspired by crop circles. Crop circles are made by people in the middle of agricultural fields as a sort of artwork or publicity stunt. I was also exploring the pairing of similar hue paints that differ in their values. For example ferrari red (PR254) and perylene maroon (PR179) are similar shades of red but the latter is much darker valued than the former. Knowing the relationship between the paints helps to make accurate shadows and to create better colour harmony. It is sometimes difficult to judge what hue angle a given colour is. For example, I never really appreciated the fact that brown is essentially dark orange, or indigo is dark blue. I have an idea for a new colour, it will be literally all the colours mixed into one. I call it Peter's Grey. But if I had to invent a colour it would be Peter's Purple Pants, and for Cilei it would be Cilei's Green Lemons. What colour would you name after yourself?
 

Remarkable Values, watercolour 8 x 10" rough press, March 2022 (No. 3329b)

World Inspired Landscapes: El Salvador

El Salvador is a small country in Central America next to Belize on the pacific side. Parts of the landscape are volcanic mountains and tropical jungles, with flat table land closer to the coast. There are many beautiful beaches, waterfalls, and interesting wildlife according to the tour guides and internet resources that I consulted. In fact, I have not known anybody to go to El Salvador as a tourist, probably due to the same problems many of the Central American countries have with violence. With the right precautions and a tour group it seems that people do visit, and seem to enjoy the hiking, food, and diverse Spanish and Indigenous culture. 

To do the painting I first made some sketches of one of the succulents that we have in the house, and then depicted it on the steep sides of a volcanic mountain. in the distance, hills and mountains illuminated in light and darkened by shadow  roll into the distance. A simple blue sky adorns the background. To make the pale, minty green of the succulents I used a pastel green made with perylene green (PBk310), burnt sienna (PR101/PBr7) and a touch of water. 

World Inspired Landscapes: El Salvador, watercolour 8 x 10" rough press, March 2022 (No. 3329a)

World Inspired Landscapes: Egypt

 

Alphabetically, Ecuador is next on my list of countries but I already made a painting of Ecuador back in 2020. It is hard to believe that 202 was two years ago, these strange times have warped our perception of time. Montreal is lifting most of the restrictions now, so I guess that means the pandemic is officially over. Getting back to the task at hand, I perused some really nice picture books on Egypt today at the library, they showed a diverse array of landscapes with one common theme, sand. In amongst the sand were lush river valleys, oases, towering sandstone mountains, and plenty of dunes and sand-blasted rock. It was a challenge to get the colours, textures and shapes right. The above painting made use of natural yellow ochres (PY43) to create a sandy, windswept desert effect.

World Inspired Landscapes: Egypt, version 4, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3076b)

In this version, a river delta surrounded by greenery adorns the foreground. The aerial photos I saw in the books showed a stark contrast between irrigated farm land and barren desert. Some of the rocks were a reddish sandstone.

World Inspired Landscapes: Egypt, version 3, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3076a)

 

I tried quite a few versions each with a different emphasis. This one shows some swirling dunes and a desert oasis with a few sandstone plateaus.

World Inspired Landscapes: Egypt, version 2, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3077)

 

Egypt also has a coast line on the Mediterranean, with turquoise water and white sands. The coast colours transitions from sand, to cream, to light blue, to a deep cyan.

World Inspired Landscapes: Egypt, version 1 watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3075a)

There was also a version 5 with a tree-lined river going horizontally across the foreground. (No. 3075b)

Who's Last Move?

 

Based on some doodles from a 2014 notebook this painting shows various emotions with a spooky composition. The earthy colour scheme adds to the effect along with decisively squiggly lines. It was obviously a time of stress for me, selling a condo, buying a condo, and moving to NDG. Moving to NDG would be stressful for anybody. To create an eerie glow, the background transitions from dark brown to yellow towards the bottom giving the feeling of a bright light underneath. The neutral character in the background is made up of just a few lines and balloon-like shapes for the eyes.

Who's Last Move? watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March  2022 (No. 2984a)

Gallery Viewing

Are you the viewers or the viewed? In this abstract painting the gallery attendees are part of the exhibit, enjoying the views from the safe confines on their glassed-in prisms. Is it a post-apocalyptic world or a dream? The painting was based on notes and doodles from 2014 although the design and actual painting was done in 2022. I didn't adhere to the doodles exactly, instead I worked out some more complete ideas in my sketchbook before committing to the painting. The painting has a carnival, house of mirrors kind of feel to it. I do enjoy making paintings that contain other paintings. For examples, I used the device before in Art Gallery Underground, Inner Critic, and Escape Route.

Gallery Viewing,  watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March  2022 (No. 2984b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Dominican Republic

 

Dominican Republic is a popular tourist destination in the Caribbean known for its expansive white sand beaches and inexpensive resorts. I visited the country many years ago, at a resort in Punta Cana and made some paintings of the nice scenery. The island has one of the biggest economies in the area due to its large tourist industry as well as the third largest gold mine in the world. The Spanish conquered the island in the colonial era, displacing the local indigenous people and exploiting the gold reserves. Unlike other colonial era countries, Domincan Republic became independent in the early 19th century and suffered some political ups and downs since then but maintained its sovereignty. As a result, the main spoken language is Spanish and the people are a mix of indigenous, spanish and black ethnicity. The obvious painting would be another beach scene but not only would that be a cliche, I have already done it literally on location with a piña colada! In looking through the internet I saw that the country has been subjected to fierce hurricanes. The painting shows a choppy Caribbean sea and strong wind blowing the palm trees back and forth. I didn't want the scene to look like a natural disaster in the making, so it just represents a strong windy day, without the piña colada,

World Inspired Landscapes: Dominican Republic, watercolour 8 x 10" rough press, March 2022 (No. 2983)

Gargle? (2014)

And now for something completely different, as Monty Python used to say. This unusual surrealism painting was based upon some notes and doodles from 2014, a year when I was busy selling one condo and buying another. My state of mind was that of having a lot money going out the window to a lot of people, such as inspectors, banks, agents etc. Perhaps that impacted the doodle somewhat. Actually, the design is a composite of several ideas merged together to create a sense of tension and absurdity. The yellow faces in the teeth are reminiscent of my lemon sunset series of abstract surrealism paintings. And me treading water is a rare self portrait in a way. I decided to label the painting with 2014 since it is more of a retrospective on some past notes. Hope you enjoy!

Gargle? (2014), watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March 2022 (No. 2982a)

Melting Snow, Cultural Center

Today the temperature rose to above zero for the first time in awhile and the snow started to melt. At the back of the cultural center I found this scene of a large puddle reflecting the interesting colours of the building. The walling at the top is semi-transparent so you can see the emergency stairs behind. That dark yellow panel really stands out as the focal point of the painting. Capturing the puddle was just a matter of painting the same scene as above but squiggly and slightly darker. The surrounding asphalt was glistening and textural. To paint puddles successfully one has to see the values correctly, in this case the dark parts of the puddle were darker than the surrounding asphalt, while the light parts were lighter. I learned that from a book by Szabo called painting little landscapes.

Melting Snow, Cultural Center, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3074)

World Inspired Landscapes: Dominica

Dominica is a small island in the east part of the Caribbean sea that used to be under French rule but is now independent. It is a geologically active island with a volcano that erupts from time to time. The rest of the island is a series of peaks and valleys carpeted with lush greenery, flowing rivers and hidden lagoons. Most of the island is undeveloped and contains some of the greatest biodiversity in the region. I knew of Dominica only because it has a medical school at their University and a few students have ended up going there to become a doctor. Maybe they need an immunology professor? To capture the rolling mountains I made an outline in yellow-green and then filled in with an array of greens and chartreuse. As it dried I applied the darker shadows with perylene green (PBk31) and then overlaid it with the tree textures. The main visual idea was to show cloud shadows projecting onto the undulating greenery suggesting a rhythmic movement. In the painting, there are several touristic features including the narrow rocky beach, a waterfall cascading off a mountain cliff into the sea, a hidden lagoon, and the the active volcano cauldron that contains literally boiling water. This perspective was common in the old Japanese 19^th century travel guides, the artists illustrated the topography and features of far-off lands in lavish detail.
 

World Inspired Landscapes: Dominica, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, March 2022 (No. 2979a)

Mount Royal, Snow Day

 

Viewed from Jeanne Mance Park, that is Mount Royal in the background. Dad and I skied to the top once, just about where you see the mountain cross the tree branch in the painting. Speaking of crosses, there is a prominent one on the mountain but I stood in such a location that the cross was obscured by the tree trunk. Generally I avoid religious symbols in my landscape paintings. To create the blue shadow of the mountain I used almost pure phthalo blue with just a touch of carbon black. When I applied the blue paint for the mountain it appeared to be dark vivid blue but I knew it would dry a bit lighter and loose its chroma. That is a more advanced concept, that the paint looks different when you apply it as compared to after it dries. The earth colours are easier to predict, for example the tree was made with umber (PBr7), raw umber (PBr7) and some carbon black (PBk6) and it looks just like it did when I painted it. On Handprint.com the author MacEvoy went to great lengths to document the exact percentages by which a paint changes its chroma and value. I read over it many times and gained a general knowledge boost. Knowledge helps a lot but one has to still practice it for the best effects.

Mount Royal Snow Day, watercolour 5 x 7" hot press, March 2022 (No. 3073)

Some New Doodleism Paintings

Doodleism is a style of painting I developed throughout the 00 decade, the paintings are based upon doodles. I draw the doodles in notebooks at meetings these days, but in the old days it would have been during class. It has been awhile since I practiced this style, the last major works were Hiking Elvis, and Saturation Costs. These doodles were from 2014 right around the time many changes were occurring in life, most of all moving neighborhoods from Mile End to NDG. The acronym MNI, hidden at the top, means Montreal Neurological Institute, and the red stringy shapes represent astrocytes. The noodle-like green things are nerves. 

Brain Impressions, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March 2022 (No. 2982b top)

 

This was a another doodle from the same notes, but it did not mesh well with the previous painting so I made it on its own. The painting is actually on the same piece of paper as the last one stuck in the bottom. The city skyline is reminiscent of Montreal seen from the south (looking north) although there appears to be a desert in the foreground.

No Spaces Left, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March 2022 (No. 2982b bottom)

World Inspired Landscapes: Djibouti

When I saw Djibouti next on the list of countries I though to myself where is Djibouti? It is located on the horn of Africa, at the north east point next to Somalia. It is a very small country tucked between other countries, and on the edge of a tectonic plate. As I learned using google earth, and by reading a brief page or two from an African travel guide, Djibouti  has a wonderful variety of landscapes ranging from mountain valleys, flat deserts, lush oases, desolate rocks, and vivid salt lakes. One of their lakes, lake Assal, is among the lowest and saltiest of any body of water in the world. In this painting, you see a large lake that has interesting rock formations and a heavily textured surface. It is more of a salt marsh than a lake. To create the intense sunset, I basically got lucky with the moisture levels and a yellow bloom formed like a halo. A pale yellow wash was applied, and when about half dry the orange-red magenta was applied.
 

World Inspired Landscapes: Djibouti, watercolour 7 x 9" cold press, March 2022 (No. 2981)

 

There were so many interesting ideas from Djibouti that I made four paintings. The top right is a depiction of the salt lake, with a candy-like green that fades into lemon yellow, briny white, and toasty beige. The bottom left shows an arid valley with a few shrubs making brilliant red flowers in the foreground, and the bottom right shows an interesting mountain near the coast that reminded me of a scoop of ice cream that fell on the floor. They are all on the same piece of paper. I was going to cut them but decided to just leave it as a quadruplicate.

World Inspired Landscapes: Djibouti, versions 1 - 4, watercolour 7 x 12" cold press, March 2022

 

 

World Inspired Landscapes: Denmark vii

 

I had a little surprise today, a book I ordered from the library arrived. The surprise was just because I forgot that I had ordered it! It was a travel book on Denmark by Eyewitness Travel, lavishly illustrated and filled with colour photos. The book confirmed what I already discovered, that Denmark has a flat and mostly unremarkable landscape. The book also explained how important the coast line is to the Danish, they go to great lengths to preserve its natural beauty. In the painting, you see a grassy field blowing in the sea breeze, a distant blue green horizon, and turquoise water. The colour of the water was more from my own memories of when I was actually in Denmark briefly. In the top left there is a group of beech trees, near a beach.

World Inspired Landscapes: Denmark version ii, watercolour 4.5 x 9" cold press, March 2022 (No. 2980)

Roofs and Snow

On a warmish sunny day, I walked to a small Parc Herbert-Outerbridge and made this painting of a bunch of snowy roof tops. The blue sky was brilliant against the orange bricks, and the flowing forms of the tree branches contrasted nicely with all the angles of the buildings and fences. The snow piles provide the focal point around which everything else was arranged. With the better weather today I was able to make a more complex painting, there are lots of overlapping and adjacent elements, a little like a puzzle. The central building was clad in wood shingles which I captured with mixes of yellow ochre (Py43), red brown (PR101, PR102, PBr7) and some pyrol orange (PO73) with indo orange (PY110). To darken the wood and brick in the shadow areas I added carbon black (PBk6). I started using black paint in 2020 and have found many uses for it. Perhaps I will do another colour doodle to demonstrate!

Roofs and Snow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, March 2022 (No. 3072b)