Lachine Canal Freezing

 

The Lachine canal was partly frozen today, there were just a few patches of open water like you see in the painting under the bridge. The water was reflecting the city-scape and glowing sky, while the frozen parts had a grey matte texture. Behind the pale green footbridge is a highway that sloped gently upwards from left to right. A constant stream of cars passed over the canal. As for the rest of the scene, it was an odd mix of spring and fall colours. Mixing in a bit of dilute salt water was essential since the below zero temperature was causing the fresh water to freeze. With just light snow in the forecast, it looks like I can continue to ride my bike to locations. Last year, it was heavy snow and the bike paths were blocked until late April.

Canal Freezing, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3675a)

Painting Year in Review: 2023

 

Lachine Canal, Sunset on a Snowy Night

I've been posting these retrospectives for some time now, you can find the previous years in review for 2020, 2021, and 2022. It was another busy year of painting in Montreal interspersed with some important trips abroad. I always start the review with my personal favorite painting, the one that stuck in my mind all year. This one was done back in February down at the Lachine Canal on a snowy night, with the sunset just finishing. The traffic on st Patrick can be seen on the top left, and the lamps along the walkway provide an eerie glow. Considering what an exhausting slog it was to get down there by foot after a long day work, and what the painting represents is quite definitive for this part of Montreal, and the snow effect is captured beautifully. There were a lot of other great paintings of the Lachine Canal, such as the train bridge at sunset, a frozen buoy in canal, and three ducks in a lock on the canal. By the way, another personal favorite of mine this year was Chartreuse Dumpster on a Sunny Day, it says a lot about me as a painter, doing paintings on the way back from work!

Montreal provides a never ending supply of industrial-urban scenery, typified by the dilapidated Canada Malt silo upon which the pink house sits. In this painting of the old Canada malting silos, you can see the rusted metal exterior with crumbling bricks, the iron structures on the ground rusting away, the colourful wall of graffiti, and if you zoom in, there is a bike in the distance on the canal bike path. This was a difficult painting to pull off, and perhaps the best technical piece of the year, although the monumental Château Frontenac at night was equally if not even more of a technical feat. Some other cool industrial Montreal scenes were Farine Roses and Grain elevator, gantry crane with sunset, and the Victoria Bridges.

 

Auto shops were a theme this year, for example a gas station at dusk, an orange sun over auto shop, the auto shop at dusk, and auto shop blue. In the painting above, Auto Shop Night Grey, I did a scene of the auto shop across the street at night, after they had painted it grey. It really captured the LED-glow on the otherwise gloomy surroundings. I wanted to mention this painting too, because it had one of the highest view counts of all the blogs, so apparently this one wins the popularity contest! Another popular one was Fresh Snow on Campus.

Cilei and I went to Brazil for a few weeks to visit her family and see her new house that her Dad built. I made quite a few paintings including the intense colours in the neighborhood, seen above, which shows a steep street in São Paulo, with the tallest mountain in the area, Pico do Jaraguá, in the background. There were lots of great paintings from the trip, including the Brazilian Kitchen, a city vista, and a plate of fruit which was one of Cilei's mother's favorites and we left it with her. 

 

Speaking of trips, I spent about 5 days in Québec City on a conference, and managed to squeeze in some fantastic paintings. It didn't take long to adapt to the environ, in fact, the painting above showing the view north, was the first one I did on the trip, still with luggage in tow. Other notable Québec City  paintings were a sunset in the city, flowers on the Plaines, a dancing corner at night, and a view from the hotel window. But really, most of the paintings I did on this short trip worked out better than I had hoped. Later in the year I went to another conference in Toronto, and made a series of paintings in challenging conditions.

It was another decent year for abstract paintings. I did a large doodleism painting called the Budget Beast, an AI-guided abstract called Sun Earth Moon, the punk rock painting, and the stress-induced Grant Grunt. One of the neatest ones was Invasive Spectrum, seen above, which also had a high view count, so it must have been good! It has a nice flow to it, and a pleasing harmony of colours. It was actually inspired by banana slugs.

 

I continued the World Inspired Landscapes series, where I do research on the internet and at the local library to learn more about countries and compose an original painting. The Italy painting seemed to hit all the right chords, it had an interesting blend of colour, contrast, and composition. You can see the whole series on one page, which gets updated regularly.  

 

Trying to pick the best overall painting is highly subjective, and this year there were a lot to pick from including Sunset on a Snowy Night, which was shown at the top of the blog, the brave Montreal scene of a snowy bridge, a scene of a parking lot with melting snow, a vista of Montreal's curving highways, springtime flowering shrubs and tulips, a night scene of crescent moon over power station, or a touristy scene of Old Montreal. But the one painting that stands out has to be Rain on the Deck with Geraniums, done while sitting in my parent's kitchen in Bolton. The blog for it has one of the highest view counts, but I know its a good one because before the painting even had a chance to dry, my Dad put it into a frame and hung it on the wall right next to the sliding doors! So now even on a sunny day they can see what it looked like on a rainy day. The painting has eye-popping geranium-red flowers set against an earthy, damp background, and the rain drops on the puddles combine seamlessly with the wooden deck boards. There were quite a few paintings from Bolton this year, flowers next to path was another favorite. 

In conclusion, after completely rebuilding my palette and updating my knowledge over the past few years since the pandemic started, it seems to be all coming together with some fantastic artwork this year. The painting above is a memory painting, showing my family paddling in a rainstorm on Balsam lake. That says it all, just keep on paddling and you will get through the storm with some help from family. 

Unfinished Product

 

A game, a paper, a renovation, there are so many unfinished projects. When it comes to art every project is unfinished until the brushes are put down for the last time, literally and figuratively. A lot of artists wonder when to stop working on a painting, they ask themselves if its over worked, under worked, or just right. I my experience, when I fiddle with a painting and keep trying to add stuff its a sign that the composition was not quite right. No amount of detail or technique can overcome a weak composition. Its the equivalent of trying to build a house on a shaky foundation. Conversely, if the composition is right then the painting will seem to finish itself. I learned composition by instinct and trial and error, along with careful study of art history. More recently I studied the Japanese 19th century print makers and that also helped a lot. Its hard to describe, but I can feel a bad composition, it makes my arm tingle and stomach turn a little. A good composition on the other hand gives me a sense of calm and confidence.

Unfinished Product, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper December 2023 (No. 2891b)

Harley Street end of Fall

Usually its the beginning of winter, if not in weather only. Technically winter starts on the 21st, but right now it feels more like spring, or I guess the end of the fall would be accurate. I made this painting of Harley street looking west, in the distance is the Snowdon Bakery, while in the foreground is Rafi auto which I have painted several times. I kept the cars in the composition to fill out the bottom left triangle, and to give a sense of ambiance. A few people are entering the bakery. To make the painting work, I embellished the amber glow of the bakery, and gave the sky a warm aura. The light seems to spill out onto the street, creating an infusion of colour.

Harley Street end of Fall, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3673b)

Rialto Theater

On the way back from Anatol yesterday I stopped on the corner of Bernard and Parc, and made a quick painting of the iconic Rialto theater. Theaters have a way of disappearing eventually but this on has survived the test of time. I started with the roof line, then decided to omit sidewalk and street level from the composition to focus on the facade. It looked comically bad as I painted, a few people even stopped to look, but once the textural effects were applied and the last of the values filled in, magic happened and the sign and other bright highlights really popped. Since I bought this floral tea, it smelled like potpourri the whole time I painted.

Rialto Theater, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3672b)

Hall Building Night

After the final exam downtown I made a quick painting standing next to my bike, with all the exams bundled up in my bike pack. The scene shows the Hall building in the background, with some buildings and a line of traffic in the foreground. The bike path is off to the bottom right. I didn't initial this one because the painting was so moist. You can take a photo on this location and paint at home, but it would never turn out quite like this. Standing on location you have to imagine the noise of busy traffic going in both directions along Maisonneuve and Guy streets, crowded sidewalks with people talking and walking by, and a chilly dark night with breeze. I think all of those elements come together to create a kind of energy in the painting. Since the eye is more sensitive than a camera, I can also pick up subtle colour variations in the sky and shadow areas that would otherwise show up as a flat charcoal-black in a photo. These are some of the reasons to paint on location. It takes a lot of experience though, especially in the dark and cold. Occasionally people will talk to you, which adds another challenging element.  

Hall Building Night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3674b)

Pink Clouds Across from Office

There I was thinking about grading another ten papers when I looked out my office window and saw these amazing pink clouds across the street. Bundling up and grabbing my paint kit I went out and braved the icy cold wind to make this painting. Without any salt in the water the palette turned to slush and the painting surface froze, but by some stroke of luck the background dried and I could fill in the various details. Using a mix of carbon black and red ochre helped get the dark highlights to stick and add window details. The pine tree on the right was perylene green with carbon black. So I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out even though it was bitterly cold. I headed home after that, wondering what could I have possibly forgotten about back in my office  :p

Pink Clouds Across from Office, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3674a)

Every Instance

Artist's log, star date 12.12.2023. We have gone where no artist has gone before and in every instance we have discovered new shapes, new colours and explored new themes until the end of the universe and beyond. I may have borrowed some of that from a certain TV show/movie franchise. The goal of this painting was to create an earthy abstract scene with lush foliage and sweeping branch-like structures interspersed with geometric elements. It was part of my ongoing palette cleanser series where I literally clean my palette with a brush and use the paint to make these experimental compositions. After the Toronto trip my dirty water bottle (I keep all the dirty water and dispose of it in a sink), had an interesting grey-orange tint to it, probably from all the concrete and buildings, combined with the intense magenta I used for the CN tower at night scene. On location I struggle to find colour, but with the abstracts I can as much or as little as I like. 

Every Instance, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper December 2023 (No. 2658b)

Paths to Provisions

Some time ago getting food must have been a real challenge, and the winter made it even more so. Now a days we just head out to the grocery store and expect food to be there, or phone for some take out. In the old days if our ancestors wanted take out, they had to fix a message onto the leg of a pigeon, for example: I want a large pizza with pepperoni and mushroom and two soda pops. Once the pigeon reached the pizzeria, they would send the order out by dog sled or horse and carriage. And if that didn't work may as well just eat the pigeon. But seriously, I don't know how they did it, perhaps a mix of farms and hunting would do the trick.

Paths to Provisions, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper December 2023 (No. 3197b)

Remaining Scenes from Toronto Trip

Yes I did attend most of the conference programming, with occasional painting sessions outside! With my newfound urban painting skills, I was better equipped to tackle the difficult task of painting in a dense urban area. In this view I am looking east along one of the cross streets near the hotel maybe Richmond or Adelaide, with a long line of cars and a neat mix of architecture. You see gleaming glass sky scrapers reaching up into the sky right next to old brick structures from over a hundred years ago. 

Sky Scraper Sky, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3671)

 

With a bit of time to spare before departing on the GO train I made this painting in front of the station and tried to capture the traffic, people with suitcases, and even a pigeon. Most of the facade is a warm orange yellow, like raw sienna, and it was reflecting tinted light on the surroundings.

People at Union Station, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3672a)

 

Searching for colours, I found this scene of a gleaming salmon-coloured glass building with the sun shining on it. In the foreground is one of the clock towers of the provincial parliament building, and the horizontal concrete in the foreground is the top of the skating rink enclosure. To make the salmon colour I used pyrol orange (PO73) with dabs of orange (PO62) and red (PR254).

Colourful Building, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3673a)

I tackled this scene because of the history of the graphics arts building, seen in the left foreground. Members of the group of seven had day jobs as graphic designers, and this was one of the building they worked in. They illustrated posters and media images at a time when photography was just taking off. Seeing the lights on made me imagine that the group of seven were sitting up there working late on a project back in early 20th century. The view essentially contained a wall of windows from three different buildings. If you look at the very top, there were little people walking on the floors of a glass-walled office tower, which was pretty neat. I also tried to capture the track lighting that you can see inside of the office towers, which adds perspective and contrast. Of course, the snow was gently falling which created a mottled effect. Now a days the building is a condominium, which at least means that the structure has been carefully conserved.

Graphics Arts Building, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3920a)

Toronto Morning and Night

 

Early in the morning before the train departed from Toronto, I made a quick painting in the relative darkness of the morning. The sky had a deep purple tint which played well against the pale yellow and grey glow of the environment. You can imagine pulling your luggage on a chilly morning and glancing up at the old fashioned clock. Despite the gloomy atmosphere I tried to create a scene that was warm and inviting with pops of colour here and there.

Union station in the Early Morning, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3669)

The CN tower is the most recognizable attraction in Toronto, it is also one of the tallest free standing structures in the world. Elevators take tourists up to the central section that is like a doughnut shape, it contains a restaurant and the dreaded transparent floors. It took awhile to get an angle on the CN tower, it was completely obscured by skyscrapers until I approached Union station and looked west. The intense red and magenta lights from the elevator and restaurant section were casting an eerie glow onto the surrounding clouds. Strong yellowish flood lights adorned the doughnut section, the cast sharp beams of light and gave the appearance of a UFO landing. On top of that, the snow was pelting down which created a mottled snow-effect on the painting's surface. I feel like this painting achieves more than just a sum of its parts, it gives an immediate, visceral sense of atmosphere and lighting. The actual scene was even more spectacular than the painting indicates, so much so that I was skeptical that I could even come close to capturing the effect.

CN Tower Cloudy Snowy Night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3670)

Hot Dog Stand

Colour was hard to find in downtown Toronto due to the season, the vast expanses of concrete and asphalt, and the freezing rain/snow. Across the street from the hotel there was the skating rink that made for some interesting paintings, and a row of food vendors that were extremely colourful. The one depicted in the painting appeared to be promoting hot dogs, sausages, and had a black red and green flag that I could not identify. Turkish symbols adorned other parts of the cart so it may have been a Turkish theme. I walked around this location a few times trying not to look weird as I scoped the angle, but then I realized there were a lot of weird people mulling about aimlessly and I felt more at ease. The city placed large decorative flower pots along the sidewalk, and when I saw how its shape fit with the food stand and the crowd waiting for the food, I stopped, opened my paint bag, poured the water, and got the paper holder, palette, and brush in my mitted-hands. As I painted the snow gently fell, creating a neat snow effect. The chef in the stand was illuminated by a magenta lamp, which played nicely off the yellow red and orange signage. The figure work is some of the most expressive I have achieved on location; it was important to the composition that they appeared huddled and cold as the waited for the warm food.

Hot Dog Stand, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3668b)

Skating Rink Nathan Phillips Square

Nathan Phillips Square is at the center of downtown Toronto, across the street from the hotel I was staying at for the multiple sclerosis conference. It was steadily snowing on this day, which created a mottled effect on the painting that looks like actual snow. I did this by intentionally standing in the snowfall while painting. The arches span the entire width of the rink, and have lights on them for night time.

Rink with Snow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3667a)

Done on a clear day, this scene of the rink is looking south where I got a glimpse of the CN tower through the sky scrapers. Due to the format I had to compress the tower a bit, wish I had the 12 x 4" paper with me but I traveled light, and I was there for a conference after all! The main part of the composition was to keep the people and skating rink area high contrast, with the rest of the scene being grey and brown. 

Rink with CN Tower, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3667b)

This was the first painting of the trip, I stopped in front of the hotel, bag on tow, and attempted a complex night scene of a illuminated rink with the vast city hall in the background. It worked out all right all things considered, although I had to touch up the bottom part back in the room due to the moisture. Most of the painting on this trip was a collaboration with the elements!

Rink at Night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3668a)

Bolton Pond with Geese

The first big snow fell in Bolton, it gave a light dusting over the storm pond that they finished renovating recently. Reeds and tall grass have grown back, and in the summer I saw ducks swimming around. As I painted this scene it was pure silence until several groups of geese in V formation flew overhead and I hoped that they wouldn't crap on me. That didn't happen luckily, and I decided to fit in some geese to the final painting for some ambiance. It was a stark contrast to Toronto where I spent most of the week at the multiple sclerosis conference. There are about 10 paintings from Toronto that I will post later, it was the first time in awhile I painted downtown. The buildings were dense and very high, although I found some neat angles. 

Bolton Pond with Geese, watercolour cold press, 5 x 7" December 2023 (No. 3666)

Auto Shop Light Snow

Preparing to leave today for Toronto I made a quick painting of the auto shop and some light snow that came down this morning. I was sitting in the living room looking out, not wanting to go on location at the moment since my paints are packed and ready to go on the trip, this was done with my backup brush and palette. I am not sure what to expect on the trip regarding painting conditions. When at a conference, especially a short one like this, there are not that many opportunities anyways and Toronto last time I was there was not particularly inspiring for an artist. I will make a quick trip to Bolton to the north and might find some scenes there, not to mention get to see my parents. 

Auto Shop Light Snow, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3843b)

Raffi's Auto

 

Usually its a painting of Joe and Ralph's auto shop across the street, but today I was picking up some food at the Snowdon Bakery and made a quick painting of Raffi's auto shop at the end of Harley street. It's not the first time I painted it, but it has been awhile. There are a series of large concrete blocks along the sidewalk which make for good seating locations to paint, although I paint standing up most of the time its nice to sit if possible. The perspective was the key to success. I made a mid line perpendicular to the bottom edge of the painting, and held my brush up to the scene to understand the angle. You can see things don't quite line up at the apex of the building but the overall effect is strong enough. I intentionally varied the left shadow from purple to yellowish, and made it green on the right in order to accentuate the red trim and enliven an otherwise dull scene. I could probably make another post tomorrow, then I travel to Toronto for a conference and brief family visit. I also completed the 'year in review' post for 2023 and it is scheduled to be posted on December 20th. That gives me some time in case I do another notable painting before another year draws to a close. 

Raffi's Auto, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2023 (No. 3665)

Camera Watchers

Looking through old boxes and items I found some old digital camera and thought about the brief history of cameras during my lifetime. They went from being elaborate devices only to be used by knowledgeable people, to being point and shoot albeit still using film. Then around 20+ years ago the first fully digital cameras came out and they took fairly lousy pictures until the technology caught up with film cameras. All seemed to be heading in the direction of smaller and smaller digital cameras, then along came smart phones which also had lousy cameras in the beginning but are now quite good. Part of the development in smart phone cameras is the lenses and hardware, but the software has grown to be more powerful. Cell phone cameras can stitch images together, adjust focus and depth across the field, and make all manner of adjustments. In the painting there is an older film or digital camera at the bottom right, a more modern digital camera in the middle, and a smart phone camera on the top right. Meanwhile the camera watchers look on. 

Camera Watchers, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper November 2023 (No. #3198b)

Today's Zomboids

And now for something completely different. Ahem. Today's zomboids, they are a little like zombies, a little like aliens, a little lost in the neon city with a flying saucer in tow. The word is from a video game called Project Zomboid, where you get to control a hapless survivor in a zombie apocalypse. I played it for the first time and a zombie crashed through the window, so I pushed it over and stomped its head with a satisfying squish. First time taking out a zombie and not a scratch. Unlike other zombie games where you shoot a lot, this one relies on stealth and survival. The painting had little with the game, I was mostly cleaning the palette off after the weekend painting. A mix of bright and earthy colours, with some good light/dark contrasts and a funny concept can go a long way.

Today's Zomboids, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper November 2023 (No. 3208b)

Jacques Cartier Bridge view De Lorimiere

With cool breezy weather today I was able to get out to the bridge and make this painting looking south on De Lorimiere. The skateboard park, unseen to my right, was making a terrible clatter of skateboarders, and there was a lot of traffic on my left, then I realized I was not wearing my earplugs which explained the noise. To tackle this painting I learned from past mistakes and completed the main structure of the bridge first, followed by the traffic, then the sky which was painted around the bridge. Of course there were pylons all up and down the street, due to the renovations they did to the park area under the bridge. The apartment on the left is under construction, and if you could see past it, there are half a dozen other massive condos under construction. Painting rows of cars is getting easier, I make a series of overlapping marshmallow shapes then fill in the green windshield, black under carriage and wheels, and leave the headlight area white until the end. Red for taillights, yellow for headlights. The bridge green was perylene green (PBk31) with phthalo green (PG7) applied a shade darker than it is after drying. Anticipating the drying shift is a hard thing to learn, it applies mostly to dark paints like PBk31, PB60 and PBk6... they dry a good shade lighter than they look when wet. 

Jacques Cartier Bridge, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, November 2023

Last Leaves

Looking east along the main drag, Notre Dame, I got a good view of the trees lining the walkway and all the old leaves on the ground which were an earthy orange-yellow. Headlights from the cars pierced the gloom, and a few specks of blue from the sky could be seen through the trees. The painting was so moist that it never really dried, and the paint was getting absorbed into the paper. Painting in these conditions is always a challenge, but every now and then it works out and its worth the effort. I mostly did this scene since I was waiting for the under-painting to dry on the Cartier street painting. It was so windy, the Cartier painting almost blew away while it was sitting in my bike pack. I brought along the wooden drying racks, which sandwich the paper between cardboard panels with elastics. In this way, I can pack up the paintings and take off without smearing them. I got pretty cold doing the painting but warmed up quickly on the bike ride home. Feeling cold and its only hovering around zero, I will have to get used to it if I want to paint this winter.

Last Leaves, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3042b)

End of Season Old Montreal

Its the end of the tourist season in Old Montreal, just a few intrepid people milling about the main Cartier Street where all the action happens. A lone busker was doing a street show before the sun went down, causing a circle of onlookers to gather. I stood under the trees on the walkway, looking up the street to make this painting. The first pass included all the tinted areas, shaded areas, and the blue sky. As it dried, I made another painting looking to the east from the exact same spot. Luckily it dried nicely and I could get in the details on the buildings, cobblestone, and the plants and people lining the street. The sun was just catching the tops of the monument and buildings. A cold wind was blowing down the street like it was a wind tunnel, which almost blew my bike over!

End of Season, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3437b)

Westhaven Apartments with Tree

On a lunch break I made a quick painting of some apartments in Westhaven , a small neighborhood south of the train tracks. I was standing in front of Snowdon bakery on Harley street looking south. Getting the angles right was key, and the arrangement of windows, doors and decks had a repeating pattern that I started to notice as the painting progressed. Its not the kind of scene you would think of for a watercolour painting, but the contrast between the sky, tree branches, windows and doors, and the tops of the cars made for an interesting composition. I was standing in the spot where the panhandler usually sits but he wasn't here today and nobody gave me any change either. Hey, help an artist out why don't you? The panhandler by the way, I give him a few coins every now and then, he once had a few paintings on the sidewalk that he was trying to sell. But he seemed to have abandonsed the effort or maybe the art market is a little soft. Anyways, I always enjoy painting in this neighborhood, at the end of the street is the field of grass where I have made dozens of paintings.

Westhaven Apartments with Tree, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3434b)

Edward Mitchell Bannister, Sur le Seekonk replica and original

 

Edward Mitchell Bannister was born in New Brunswick in 1828, he was an accomplished artist who spent time in the US. As a black man, his art career faced many hurdles, for example one of his paintings won a prize but when the jury found out who he was they tried to renege. Perusing his artwork on the internet and wikipedia page, he did portrait work, and painted amazing landscapes in what might be called the pastoral style. In this style, rolling hillsides are dotted with trees, lakes, and rivers, with the occasional sheep or rural worker. Later in his career his work veered towards impressionism, which may well have been due to the time frame of his career overlapping the likes of Monet and Van Gogh. In the painting you see above, I replicated his watercolour from 1892 in order to understand the style, composition, and to get a feel for what it was like to paint over 100 years ago. The original watercolour you see below, he painted in 1892 as a preliminary sketch, probably in preparation for a larger work since he was known to produce sketches and colour studies before doing a large oil painting.

From reading  Handprint.com I knew that 19th century watercolour painters had to use very hard cakes of pigment that were difficult to extract colour from. I had a few of those from Stoneground paint a Canadian company, and they were indeed hard to activate and get pigment on the brush. As a result, you can see the  general pallor of colour in the original version, as compared to the brightness of my modern replica. In fact, I had to reign in the intensity of the colours to get down to a low saturation point. Bannister's painting used a lot of yellow ochre and viridian, and what appears to be raw sienna. The sky has a faint purplish tinge which could have been dilute cobalt blue but it is hard to tell. I have much more powerful greens in the phthalo category, but those were not on the art market until the mid 20th century. He used classical compositional geometry, the left side of the painting is divided into exact 1/3 segments (sky, mid ground, foreground), and the horizon line on the right is on the exact half way mark, as if measured by a ruler. I particularly liked the sun penetrating through the hazy overcast sky, which I embellished in a more colourful manner in the replica. I enjoyed learning about his style and hope that more black artists can get the credit that they probably deserved more of at the time, even if is retrospectively. If I could find any pastoral scenes in Montreal I would go paint them, but alas all I can find around here are sidewalks, cars, and condos!

Sur le Seekonk Replica, 8 x 10 hot press watercolour, November 2023 (No. 2687b)

The original : Sur le Seekonk, watercolour by Edward Mitchell Bannister, (1892)

Night Mechanics

On a whim I made this night painting of the Joe and Ralph auto shop on Somerled Avenue, seen from the Metro grocery store (formerly Steinbergs Grocer) looking West. From this angle you can see the front of the shop, and the windows where a customer and two employees were standing behind a counter, maybe it was Joe and Ralph? The gas pump is on the left, it has its own two lamps each with two bulbs. To compose this scene I adjusted the perspective to be on a one point perspective, even though I was standing on an angle. That means that in the painting, you feel like you are standing right in front of the building. It was a subtle adjustment, but a difficult one to make on the spot. Since I have pyrol orange (PO73) again, I could make that sensational dark blue sky by mixing it with indothrene blue (PB60). Both of those pigments are high chroma, and the resulting mix is an intense dark blue or dark purple if you add more of the orange. In the top left corner you can see how dark the mix was, and yet it still has a sharp, purple grape juice look to it. To make the stars in the sky I dragged the brush then filled in the areas to leave small white dots of paper showing through. There were no stars in the actual scene, but I wanted the sky to look like a Van Gogh painting! At something below zero, I had to use salt in the water, and wear my mitts with deerskin gauntlet on top, so believe it or not I managed this painting while wearing the equivalent of oven mitts. Its one of those skills that a winter-painter must learn. The name by the way, was a play on Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. 

Night Mechanics,  watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3408b)

Yellow Tree at Sunset

On my way back from another appointment I stopped to make a quick painting of this amazing sunset sky with a yellow tree in the foreground, and the old disused train tracks. The location is beside Lasalle Park in Lachine, it would be just to my left as I painted. Getting the sky right took several colour transitions and careful control of the moisture levels. Starting with the horizon, it was phthalo blue sapphire (PB15) with quin magenta (PR122), then adding more magenta and some orange (PO73), in the transition area I applied a faint, neutral green, cyan, then blue at the top. As it dried I worked on the bottom of the painting, the buildings and finished with the tree and other details like the phone poles and train track. The yellow wash collapsed a bit, everything was so moist, and the dark highlights in the tree blurred. In some ways it works better this way, the Neapolitan coloured sky stands out, which was what caught my attention in the first place. It was only 15 minutes and the sun was down, so I wrapped it up, put on the bike lights and headed home. 

Yellow Tree at Sunset, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3397b)

Finding Flowers

I spent time sifting through old notes and documents and found some neat ideas for paintings along the way. All of the doodles from this era were turned into large abstract paintings over the years. My strategy in the past was to combine as many doodles as possible into one painting but I always thought that certain drawing would make good stand alone works. The original doodle had the foot and hands design with the words 'help' 'French' scrawled at the top (help in French... I probably needed a lot of). In the painting, I added the googly-eyes, an embellished environment, and a little pink flower being picked by the left hand of the creature. The eyes are looking down at the flower. Thematically speaking, there is an analogy between picking beautiful flowers, and finding interesting drawings in a pile of papers. The rust colour of the creature was meant to make it look like an iron sculpture similar to the ones I painted on location recently. It is sized at 10 x 11" but I painted it within the boundaries of an 8 x 10" opening which is ideal for easy framing.

Finding Flowers, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3661)

 

Here is the original doodle !

Tree Shadows on Hill

 

Despite the cold, windy weather it was possible to do this painting without any salt in the water. The small hill runs parallel to the busy Cavendish street, it blocks a bit of the sound and gives a feeling of being in a forest. I like to walk around here sometimes and make paintings, since the nearest forest is either up on the south summit Mount Royal, the escarpment, or Park Angrignon in Lasalle. The trees were a variety of colours including dark yellow, sap green, and a rusty yellow-green. The trunks were done in dark purple (PV19 + PBk6) and some yellow (PY43) and red ochre (PR102) daubed in. I applied the tree shadows when the background grass was still moist, then layered on some textural brush strokes including my initials. In other news I've reorganized my recent paintings (2021-now) into a sturdy new box that fits better in the closet, and gone through some piles of old papers and notes. Cilei calls it my archive!

Tree Shadows on Hill, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3585b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Kenya

 

Kenya is a vast country in the north central part of Africa with low mountainous terrain, flat savanna, and wetlands in the south of the country. Millions of birds live in Kenya including the iconic pink flamingo that feasts on shrimp in the pink lakes. I got a large picture book from the library and was impressed with the rugged landscape and the colourful clothes that the locals wear. It appears that Kenya has a large tourist industry too, for people to visit and see the wildlife and landscape. The idea behind this painting was to capture some sense of the rugged landscape in the craggy, high contrast tree, along with a veritable  wall of pink. At first glance you may not even notice there are a bunch of flamingos eating, flying, and hanging out on the shore, including one sticking its beak into the foreground. I got the flamingo shapes by randomly scrolling down an image search on my smart phone. You can kind of sit in your art chair now and get any image you want on the phone. The sunset goes from yellow to orange to tomato-red in the  sky. The painting should have been called 'pink flamingos in a pink lake at sunset.'   Who needs AI when you have a wild imagination!

World Inspired Landscapes: Kenya, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3660)

World Inspired Landscapes: Italy

Italy has a rugged, mountainous landscape with plenty of coastal scenes and lush interiors. In the central area of the country, the climate is very similar to southern France and Spain, which of course facilitates large olive plantations mostly in the south of Italy. When studying the Italian landscape via google earth and the Duckduck go image search engine, I found a lot of mountain scenes reminiscent of  other mountainous countries, although the rocks looked old and crumbly, with prominent marble-like or granite deposits strewn about. In the end I went with a colourful agricultural scene with natural elements juxtaposed against an olive grove. To make a painting like this work, it is all about controlling the contrasts. On the right, a soft and pale olive green is set on a background of warm brown, and the dark purple olive tree trunks and branches really make it pop. On the left, you have a sharp pairing of green, beige, warm yellow, and green chartreuse going from bottom to top. The cypress trees done in perylene green (PBk31) and deep scarlet (PR175) give the light/dark contrast to simulate sun. I added a turquoise and blue swirling sky to give a nod to Van Gogh, since a lot of the technique here was adapted from his paintings of southern France. The textural overlays on each segment accentuate the composition. In the test painting, I had composed it on the landscape orientation, but I thought the portrait orientation was stronger. That strip of beige, representing a dirt access road, anchors everything together. I quite like this painting, and didn't expect it to turn out so nicely, so I hope everybody gets a kick out of it!

World Inspired Landscapes: Italy, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3823)

Palette Update November

 

Its been awhile since the last palette update, where I paint out the current palette setup and muse over my colour choices. I actually have two palettes now, identical in most ways, which helps to always have a clean one ready to go especially after doing a night painting which really messes it up! As usual I have a range of earth colours, yellow ochre, green umber, burnt umber and red ochre. The darks include deep scarlet, dark magenta, indo blue, phthalo green blue shade, and perylene green. To mix greens I also include phthalo green yellow shade, yellow, and orange-yellow on the top row. The bottom row has 5 warms: yellow, orange, red-orange, red, magenta, and the blue which is used just for skies and making violet when needed. Black rounds out the palette choices. I tried using PO36 for awhile as the red-orange but I found that it mixes a brownish colour when combined with indo blue. Now I have a large sized tube of Winsor and Newton's red orange which is PO73 (pyrol orange), which mixes a dark neutral violet with indo blue that is perfect for night skies. The PO73 is a more versatile mixer than PO36, and it has one of the highest chromas of any paint. The slight downside is that PO73 is  little less stable in light compared to PO36 which is rated as indestructible by MacEvoy on Handprint.com. Having said that, PO73 is still pretty stable and MacEvoy had high regard for the pigment, so its good enough for me. On the top of the scan you see a portion of a test painting I did for a World Inspired Landscape painting, which is now complete. Try and guess the country just by looking at the segment!

Palette Update November 2023, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour pad November 2023

Abstract Audition

Using a retro colour scheme, this abstract painting depicts a psychedelic almost musical pattern straight from the 1970's. The explanation for the colour scheme has to do with the fact that this is a palette cleanser and I have used a lot of fall colours lately including browns, yellows and oranges. I've always let the paint dry in blobs on my palette which can then be re-wetted the next time I want to paint. In doing so, the paint gets mixed a bit on the surface, causing notable discolourations in yellow, orange, magenta and red for the most part. I used to run the palette under the sink for a few seconds but that is rather wasteful of the paint. Other artists squeeze the paint fresh every time as if doing an oil painting, but this is not practical for location painting. The name of the painting was inspired by watching one of those audition shows where contestants do some type of entertainment and the judges buzz them on or off the show. If this were an art show, I wonder how many paintings would I get buzzed on or off the show for? 

Abstract Audition, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper November 2023

World Inspired Landscapes: Japan

Doing the Japan installment of the World Inspired Landscapes was extra challenging because not only have I been studying Edo era woodblock landscape prints by the likes of Hiroshige and Hokusai for the past three years, but I also visited Japan back on 2006. I say its challenging since I try to approach each of these designs with some originality and style. Flipping through a travel book on Japan by National Geographic, I saw a picture of a raw tuna fish that was cut in half at a Japanese fish monger and the striations in the meat looked like mount Fuji. I spent some working out how to best paint raw fish, then developed the idea of combining a sushi roll with Hokusai's famous print called Under the Great Wave which depicts a giant wave crashing over several boats with mount Fuji tucked away in the distant horizon. The rice in the sushi roll was modeled after the wave, and the hunk of avocado is shaped like mount Fuji. The sky is adorned with a slab of raw smoked salmon and some chunks of mango. All wrapped in a kelp sheet. As long as the sushi looked good enough to eat, and the scene of the Great Wave did some justice to the original print, I figured what  better way to pay tribute to Japan. The Japanese print makers were also very playful with their designs. Hiroshige made a famous print where the viewpoint was low and situated beneath the rear end of the horse for example. Hokusai made a print where mount Fuji was framed by a large circle that was a barrel in construction. So they liked to play visual games with their audience, often including inside jokes. 

World Inspired Landscapes: Japan, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, November 2023 (No. 3824)

Nothing Surprise, catalogue update

What can be more exciting than a nothing surprise? Surprise! Nothing. It would be a surprise though, if somebody said 'surprise' but didn't have anything for you. So I'm not sure what is the meaning of the title of this painting, it reminded me about the phrase 'nothing burger'. Just make sure you order fries with your nothing burger otherwise you might be a little hungry afterwards. 

I updated the catalogue, the total number of paintings is up to 4387. Mind you, that is almost 35 years of painting. The year's tally is looking to be just over 500, maybe less than last year. The number of paintings is not really important, in fact, it is a bit of a challenge to find enough boxes and closet space to store them all. That's why I paint on the backs so often, to save space more than anything.

Nothing Surprise, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper November 2023 (No. 3658)

Québec City view from Hotel Window

Earlier in the summer in Québec City I made this painting from the vantage point of the hotel window. The famous Chateau Frontenac is seen on the right. Sailboats were darting around the river on this warm and breezy day. In the background is one of the bridges that crosses the river. There was a lot of detail in this painting, and it was crucial to get the shapes and proportions of the main buildings correct. Its kind of like a hand painted postcard!

Québec City view from Hotel Window, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, 2023  (No. 3625)