Covered with Green

When a tube of paint is nearly finished I usually roll it up and squeeze out as much paint as possible. Even then there is more left in the tube which can be accessed by cutting the tube open. Phthalo green yellow shade (PG36) was a paint that I first tried in 2020, it is a nearly perfect hue of green and has been a part of my palette ever since. As I cut open the small empty tube from 2020 and painted out the remnants I ended up with green on my fingers, hence the name of the painting covered with green. The other reason for the title was a recent development plan that Concordia tabled for the Loyola campus. Essentially they will fill the campus with as many buildings as possible and cover their roofs with grass. In this way it becomes a green project, especially if they use astro-turf.

Covered with Green, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3375b)

Blue Away

Having survived a few cold and windy days of painting, it seemed to fitting to name this one ''blue away'. It was also a play on the idea that I was using up a few old tubes of blue paint. The main colours are phthalo blue (PB15), indo blue (PB60) and lapis lazuli (natural pigment). You can see where the lapis lazuli was used, it forms streaky, textured brush strokes due to the large pigment size and high amount of gum arabic in the formula. Next to the synthetic blues, the lapis lazuli looks dull and greyish. In antiquity lapis lazuli was the most expensive pigment, and some artists used it to great effect for example Vermeer. Now a days artists use the synthetic version called ultramarine blue (PB29), although I stopped using it in 2020 due to its instability in mild acid.

Blue Away, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, February 2023 (No. 3375a)

Brave Montreal

 It took a little bit of motivation from Cilei but I finally got on the bike and headed out into a very snowy Montreal. I kept thinking, what a brave city, to live in such cold weather for half the year! There were even a few crazy folks out on their bikes or jogging, and at least one person painting watercolours (me). I have painted this bridge before, it is the relatively new one they built to extend st Jacques over the Decarie. The sun was permeating the snowy sky like a yellow orb. It was actually much higher in the sky than you see in the painting but I wanted to fit it all on the small format. The bridge and other details were actually added on the way back from my trip after the under-painting had a chance to dry. I thought about finishing it at home, but wanted to get the snow-effect on the bridge support. To get the snow-effect you literally have to let the snow fall on the wet painting.

Sun over Bridge Snowy Day, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3403)

The canal path was still un-rideable, so I walked across the footbridge with bike in hand and set up near the railing looking east. By now the snow was really coming down, so much so, that my palette and the painting were getting covered and I kept having to shake it off. To make a decent painting in such conditions, it was important to leave a lot of blank paper between the elements so they would not run together too much. At least I really got the snow-blasted effect.

Frozen Canal Snow Storm, watercolour 8 x 10" rough press, February 2023 (No. 3594)

With a full blown snow storm enveloping Montreal, I had to find shelter under a structure at Atwater market. I stood there for a long time protected from the snow wondering what to paint. None of the scenes were very appealing. Then a fellow walked past, weighed down with four enormous garbage bags full of cans that clattered with every step. I felt paralleled with this fellow. He was finding cans around Montreal and hauling them back to the grocery store for the sake of a meager refund, while I was finding scenes to paint around Montreal for the sake of my blog.  The snow was piled high and filthy with sand and grit, while the rest of the scene was grey, brown and a few pops of colour here and there.

Can Man Atwater Market, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3404)

Snowy Field Long Shadows

 

On a lunch break I stopped off at the field to make a quick painting. It had to be quick, not so much due to the lunch break, but due to the extremely cold wind. The wind was blowing from by back towards the east, so I stood looking east to shelter my face a little. Since the sun was going down, okay it was a late lunch break, the shadows were getting very long. You can see my shadow on the bottom right. It almost felt like the wind was blowing the shadows away!

Snowy Field Long Shadows, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3402b)

Train Tracks Heaps of Snow

This scene is close to work, I just stopped off on the way over to the laboratory. Last year, I made a painting from this vantage point of the commuter train passing by at night. It was a cloudy night and there were no stars to be seen, but all of the artificial lighting in the background kind of looked like stars. I have an idea to paint a larger version of the commuter train under the stars from this vantage point. Today however, it was overcast with cold temperatures and heaps of snow from a recent snow fall. In the foreground is the vine, dormant for the winter and eagerly awaiting the spring so that it can keep growing and taking over Montreal.

Train Tracks Heaps of Snow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3400b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Haiti

Haiti shares a long island in the Caribbean with Dominican Republic, divided roughly down the center. Historically, Haiti was populated with indigenous Taino people. These people were displaced by French colonialists who also brought black slaves forced into sugar plantations. The Taino people mostly dissipated but were not extinct; to this day there are people who identify as Taino descendants and practice elements of their culture that was passed along or learned from historical records. Researchers were able to match genetic information from a preserved indigenous tooth from a museum to modern descendants which confirms their ancestry. Unfortunately, Haiti has now succumb to devastating earthquakes and political instability that is still unresolved. With all this in mind, the world-inspired painting of Haiti needed to have a degree of tension, but still feature some of the incredible landscape. Most pictures I could find on the internet showed wide spread deforestation and landslides scarring the mountains, however, in this series I have tried to show local landscapes in their best light. To create the light-filled scene while maintaining the tension, I adapted some ideas van Gogh developed in Arles, southern France. He incorporated broken brush strokes, jarring contrasts, and a myriad of frenetic brushwork. He also contrasted bright yellow with the comparatively darker yellow ochre to great effect. You can see elements of those ideas in the Haiti painting. I composed an unusual warped perspective to give the sense that this land was unstable and ever-changing.

World Inspired Landscapes: Haiti, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3370)

Warm and Wet Sunday Bike Ride

With temperatures soaring to +4℃ by mid-day it was practically tropical here in Montreal. The trouble with warmer temperatures like this is that the snow melts into a slushy pack making it difficult to walk around or ride the bike. I rode my bike as far as the train bridge that crosses the Lachine Canal, a scene that I have painted many times before. There was a coral sunset in the background with cold dark clouds. I omitted the giant elevated highway that dominated the foreground to focus the composition on just the bridge.

Train Bridge over Canal Winter Sunset, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3401)

On the way back I tested the Maisonneuve bike path which was at least half clear and okay for riding. This scene is in Westmount Park where there is normally a donut-shaped pond and small island in the middle. Judging by the snow embankments the pond area was empty of water, just the surrounding lamps could define the shape. The sun was down by now, and I used my head lamp to complete the painting. In the past, I would never have pulled off a painting like this due to the low light conditions. To get the effect, I started with a blue-grey background and the sunset, leaving the lamp areas blank. Since I was using fresh water today, not salt, it dried well and allowed for the complex overlays and detailing. 
 

Evening Lamps Westmount Park, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3398b)

Hundreds of People, Mile End

 The Mile End neighborhood used to be farms for as far as the eye could see until Montreal grew and grew bigger. Now it is a densely populated urban environment that seems to have a cafe on every corner. This scene was on Fairmount avenue looking east across the st Laurent boulevard. The red brick buildings have a few popular breakfast restaurants, while the grey brick building on the right used to have an Indian restaurant but I couldn't tell if it still was. I was expecting the weather to get better but it started to snow and there was a lot of slush on the roads. One of the blogs I follow, Liz Steel, is doing a challenge to sketch 100 people in a week. I am not a fan of such challenges, but its fair to say that there were hundreds of people in this one painting, most of them sitting in the restaurants!

Hundreds of People, Mile End, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3402a)

World Inspired Landscapes: Guyana

 

Located on the North coast of South America, surrounded by Brazil and Venezuela, Guyana is a small country rich in resources. The Guyana landscape was a puzzle of different elements, it has vast savannas, jungles, plains, mountains, rivers, lakes and waterfalls. It reminded me of an old game called the Settlers of Catan, where the play board was set up anew each time with hexagons of various terrains. The colonial aspect of Settlers of Catan seemed to be a fitting statement on many countries in the southern hemisphere that were taken by colonial powers. To make the painting I created a cardboard hexagon template using a formula from the internet. To draw a perfect hexagon, make a circle, then draw the edges of the hexagon, which are each as long as the radius of the circle. The template helped to establish the scaffold of the design. The hexagon fill was inspired by all the colours and -patterns I saw from the pictures of Guyana, including a prominent black-rock mountain and a large waterfall. 

World Inspired Landscapes: Guyana, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3369)

Tree, Lamp Winter Night, Trenholme Park

 

As usual the Lufa vegetable delivery arrived near Trenholme park and I went to pick it up after work. This scene was looking back towards Sherbrooke. One of the prominent trees was illuminated by an amber lamp. Unfortunately, quite a few of these grand old trees had to be cut down recently due to the invasive beetles. The spot I was standing was in the 'games area' they have reserved for playing croquet and shuffleboard. For some reason they keep the floodlights on despite nobody using the area. At least I made use of the strong light to do this painting.

Tree, Lamp Winter Night,  watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3400a)

Perform with a Fork

 

Usually its the fork that I forget to bring to work, but today it was my paint brushes. Just the brushes mind you, I had everything else with me. With this scene in front of me, it seemed a shame to give up so I literally made this painting with a fork. To start I poured some water on the palette than worked up the blue and pink colours in the sky. After a few tries I figured out how to apply the paint washes and scrape in some detail. By holding the fork upright I could make some interesting details like the windows of the PERFORM Centre across the street, a tree, and my initials on the right side. Paining with a fork wasn't ideal, I understand why brushes are so important now, but at least the moment was well captured!

Perform with a Fork, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3399b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau is a small country just to the north of Guinea in the west of Africa. It has a Portuguese colonial history that left a legacy of the language, although most people there speak one of many indigenous languages, or a common Kriol (Creole) which is a fusion of Portuguese with regional dialects that most people there can speak and understand. In fact, the Kriol is a complete language and they have books and documents written in it. In a youtube video the people were talking in Kriol and saying how they preferred this over the colonial era Portuguese. Another interesting fact about Guinea-Bissau is that they have have a burgeoning rice industry. Much of the land used to be Mangrove wetlands which were converted to rice paddies by clearing mangroves and building a system of dikes to retain fresh water. Unfortunately the loss of mangroves is causing coastal erosion and inundation with salty ocean water that spoils the land. 

In the painting I depicted a rice paddy surrounded by an earthen dike surrounded by natural mangrove trees. Hints of the ocean are seen in the background. I got the idea from an old Japanese print showing a field of grass, called Chiryu station in the 53 stations series. Instead of depicting the flowing rice with black or green lines, I used a variety of colours to give it some pop. It's a great yellow colour in the background, I made it with yellow (PY154), yellow orange (PY110) and a touch of green (PG36). 
 

World Inspired Landscapes: Guinea-Bissau, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3368)

Mile End Melting Snow

 

Unfortunately I found out that the barber was closed on Sundays, but at least I had a nice bike ride and did a few paintings. This scene is looking west along Fairmount Avenue near where I used to live. A great big pile of snow was enveloping the shrubberies in the foreground. The pole was an interesting neutral green, and magenta buildings popped out against an otherwise gloomy background.

Fairmount Av. Piles of Snow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3398a)

This scene is looking south along Clark Street, standing in the exact same spot as for the first painting. I started with the under-painting for this one, then switched to the other one, and then finished the details on this one. A lot of people were walking by and quite a few took a peek or stopped to talk to me in French or English. The building depicted here is the landmark Wilensky's deli which has been there for almost 100 years. Its my third or fourth attempt at the scene and I have never quite got it right. Perhaps I can return sometime and give it another go.

Rue Clark with Wilensky's Winter, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3399a)

Bread Park Winter

On my way back from picking up some artisanal bread from La Meunerie I stopped to make a quick painting in Bread Park. It has an actual name, but I equate this park with me buying bread hence the nickname. The sky was a rare, brilliant blue which was depicted using phthalo green and blue (PG7 and PB15). I explained the technique on a page in my blog called how to paint skies. In the foreground I included my own shadow being cast as I painted. To get the right shade of blue, it is best to add a touch of magenta (PR122) to the phthalo blue (PB15), which you can see in the tree shadows streaking across the well-trodden snow. Ultramarine blue would also be good here but I took it off my palette forever in 2020. I still have a pan with ultramarine, but only use it for some abstract work due to its extreme chemical instability in mild acid.

Bread Park Winter, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3397)

Diet of the Day

There seems to be a new fad diet or diet drug popping up every year or two. The diet and supplement industry is worth several billion dollars and has little to no regulation on effectiveness, and marginal safety oversight. Eating a healthy, well balanced diet is the secret to maintain a healthy weight, so fad diets and drugs are just a myth. The whole idea of a diet is to do something unpleasant for a short time and then go back to the old ways, which is why it wont work, and explains the never ending profits generated by the industry. This story has nothing to do with the painting, other than this was my painting of the day, although no weight was lost during the painting!

Diet of the Day, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, February 2023 (No. 3374b)

Cabot Square Night Lights

It is not too often that you see a deer in downtown Montreal, let alone one that is glowing. In fact, it is part of a light installation left over from the holidays that included several lit up deer shapes, coloured lights illuminating the trees, and some coloured spheres hanging from tree branches. Capturing the subtle light and colour effects required a good control of the water and paint content on the paint brush. The foreground consisted of a three colour blend from golden yellow, to pink, to blue. Interestingly, the shadow of the tree was a greenish brown due to the colour of the night sky reflecting from it. It took awhile to pick this scene, and I almost walked past knowing that painting a light-bulb-deer with watercolours at night is nearly impossible, but I am glad to have stuck with it, this painting captures lightning in a bottle so to speak. 

Cabot Square Night Lights, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3396)

Souvlaki George Winter Night

The sky last night was an unusual collection of pastel colours. Lilac, blue, green and shades of yellow could be seen depending on the angle. That seems to happen with heavy cloud cover in the winter, you get light reflecting from a distant sun set along with the city lights of Montreal. In the painting I tried to capture the subtle interplay of the pastel sky with the cream-coloured bricks of Souvlaki George, a nearby restaurant. At the very bottom of the scene there was a fence, and then a sidewalk but I ran out of space on the paper since I wanted to focus on the sky. Its starting to get lighter outside earlier, which is a good sign that winter is coming to an end.

Souvlaki George Winter Night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3392b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Guinea

Guinea is a Western African country on the coast and surrounding Senegal. Conakry is the main city, and is sometimes added to the name of the country, Guinea-Conakry to distinguish from the nearby Guinea -Bissau and Equatorial Guinea. Apparently Guinea was a regional name that many countries adopted into their names. As I research African countries there are many similarities to the landscapes including low lying mountain ranges, iron oxide earth, tall balboa trees, vast deforested agricultural land, jungles, and coastal beach scenes that could just as well be in the Caribbean. There was not much material to go on for Guinea, but there were some interesting photos of women fishing using nets. It turns out that many people use mosquito nets to fish. The mosquito nets were given to them by international aid organizations to help prevent the spread of malaria, however, with billions of nets and a need for food, the people adapted the use of these nets for fishing. The women in the pictures also had jugs and buckets balanced on their heads as they did this, perhaps to keep the fish fresh on the way home. 

Another inspiration for this design was a famous print by Hiroshige showing a fishing net being tossed into a lake. You can see the print in this link. Figures have not shown up too often in my world inspired landscape series although there have been giraffes and crabs!

World Inspired Landscapes: Guinea (Republic of Guinea), watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3367)

Hydrant with Slushy Road and Sidewalk

Shortly after work I took a stroll down Somerled Avenue and found heaps and heaps of slush. The partially melted snow was mixed with copious amounts of salt and sand. With a sunset brewing in the background, there was plenty of lights still reflecting off the moist road and sidewalk puddles. Today's subject matter was a throw-back to my early days when I would not hesitate to paint a hydrant or garbage can. Notably, the hydrants around town got a fresh coat of paint recently, to my eye it looks like they pyrol red, the same pigment on my palette.

Hydrant with Slush, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3395b)

No Space Below

 

After a few messy outdoor paintings the palette was in need of a good cleaning. There was so much salt on the paint that it crystalized giving this indoor painting a slight sparkle. When doing a painting like this there are no rules or objectives per say, just to make something different than the last one. I've done quite a lot of these palette cleansers by now, such that the pad is finally finished. I placed an order for a new pad, along with some 7 x 10" blocks that were on sale. Of all the thing a watercolour painter uses, its the paper that generally costs the most. Some of the paint is expensive but it lasts so long that the cost is rather low over all. As for the brushes, the synthetic ones do fine. I am still using one particular brush for over 20 years now and its still good!

No Space Below, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, February 2023 (No. 3374a)

World Inspired Landscapes: Grenada

 

One of many island nations in the Caribbean, Grenada stands out for its rugged, natural shorelines, lush greenery, and the endless sandy beaches. Scuba diving is a popular tourist attraction, they even have an underwater sculpture display where barnacles and coral grow on statues of people, bikes, couches, and even TVs made of plaster. A little known fact is that Grenada is one of the biggest exporters of nutmeg, that brownish spice that is used on vegetables and in pumpkin pies. In the painting, the nutmeg fruits are shown in exaggerated fashion growing across the land. Historically Grenada was populated by the Arawak indigenous people, then Spanish cartographers discovered the islands and probably named it after Granada the Spanish city, although there is no evidence that they ever tried to colonize. Instead, the British and French took over in succession, leaving behind an all too familiar story of indigenous displacement and slave labour for sugar cane. Now independent, Grenada thrives on tourism and agriculture. In planning this painting I considered doing an underwater scene with coral-encrusted statues, but then I researched some of the local Grenada landscape paintings and saw a great opportunity for colour. It was nice to paint a tropical beach scene since the weather here in Canada was -40℃!

World Inspired Landscapes: Grenada, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3366)

Icy Cold on Campus

As I have done many times before, I stopped to make a quick painting on campus on the way home. Unlike previous days, it was seriously cold today, at -26℃ with -39℃ windchill, the news even said it was closer to -44 with windchill. For the most part, my winter gear held up, and I found a nook to stand in that was sheltered from the direct wind. Even with triple-layered gloves and wool wrist-gators on, my fingers were beginning to feel it by the time I finished the painting. It was more detailed and had sharper edges when I completed the painting, but when it dried at home the frozen paint melted and blurred it out a bit. Actually, it looks more accurate now, you can get the impression of snow blowing in the fierce wind. Adding to the challenge, I was standing under an amber lamp, which makes it difficult to judge colours correctly, and the paint was pretty frozen making it hard to get the colour on the brush. Today's painting breaks my previous cold weather-painting record which was in mid January of last year, when it was a balmy -24℃ with -35℃ wind chill. These are the kind of records that nobody but me want to break.

Icy Cold on Campus, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3395a)

And today's screen shot: 

 

Benches under Pine Trees

The weather was quite warm today, just a few degrees below zero and no wind or snow. That is about to change though, they are calling for -25℃  and blowing snow for the next day. This scene is from the park adjacent to the sports complex, it is one of the places I can go to paint in the winter when the going gets tough. I chose this scene knowing that it would be amenable to the conditions. I completed the shadows and snow elements at the bottom, then worked on the snow covered pine trees and benches. Finally, the red brick condos in the background completed the effect. Perylene green (PBk31) really helped, its one of the paints that I wish I could throw back to myself 30 years ago and use to paint pine trees!

Benches under Pine Trees, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3394b)

Fresh Snow on Campus

To kick off February I made a very quick painting of the fresh snow on campus that had fallen over the past few days. The tree and bench were featured in the painting Persian Woman Eating Lunch on Campus in the fall from the other direction. Although it was extremely cold this morning I was well dressed and actually felt overheated standing in the winter sun. The entire bottom part of the painting, save the shadows and my initials, is just the paper unpainted. The paint dried quite a bit lighter than it would normally, this is something that happens when the temperature gets to twenty below. We have another cold day coming up on Friday, so I can test the theory, and my winter clothes, once again.

Fresh Snow on Campus, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3394a)

Deep A.I. Gumdrop Tornado version 2

After completing the first version seen in a previous blog, I hung up the painting on the wall for the past few weeks. It irked me slightly that the colours on the painting I did were off as compared to the A.I. image. I couldn't let a computer out paint me! This time, the yellows and reds were slightly on the cooler side, and the oranges were toned down with a touch of burnt sienna. The key element, the gumdrop in the foreground, was also sharpened. This version definitely captures the colours and feel of the A.I. image, although the computer was much neater. There are three more A.I. images to work from, based on flamingos, so those should be fun to do on a snowy day.

Deep A.I. Gumdrop Tornado version 2, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, January 2023 (No. 3365)