Making my way down to the canal after work only took about 10 minutes by bike thanks to the St. Jacques overpass they opened a few years ago. The canal bike path forks here, leading to a bridge that goes over the canal (foreground), or onward to downtown (right). The sun was low on the horizon and quite strong, creating a patchwork of shadows over top of the winding bike path. In the background, wispy grass was glowing in the light. It was a tricky painting to manage but the overall effect is nice. Just imagine the strong wind gusting and people riding by all the time.
Fork in Bike Path, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2023 (No. 3509b)
This was the first painting I did on the short excursion, it shows a walking path that runs parallel to the canal, and alternating light and shadows on the green grass. I vary the greens by mixing four colours: perylene green (PBk31), phthalo green yellow shade (PG36), yellow (PY154 or PY97) and iso yellow (PY110) and adjusting the amount of water. I also varied the colour of the blades of grass to match the underpainting, and made the railing orange where the light was falling.
Light on Shadow on Grass, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2023 (No. 3508b)
On the way back I tackled a panorama scene of downtown Montreal with part of the highway, and large clouds overhead. Paining clouds can be extremely difficult to do since their colour, value, and saturation changes seamlessly. Too much water and the clouds diffuse, not enough water and the edges are hard. In this attempt I added paint in quick succession to get a wet-in-wet-in-wet technique. With strong wind the paint dries really fast which had to be taken into account.
Big Clouds over Montreal, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2023 (No. 3510)
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