Scenes from Bolton Summer

Under the back deck of my parent's house there is a lush clematis vine with purple flowers, along with a bunch of rhubarb and a red canoe in the background. To paint the clematis I applied the green foliage first, then coloured it in with variations of purple. When painting, there are many ways to make purple. First of all, you can think of what is purple? In a colourful sense, purple is actually a low value (dark) magenta, replicated almost perfectly by a pigment called dioxazine violet (PV23). Instead, I used a mix of indo blue (PB60) with violet magenta (PV19), although it works better with purple magenta (PV55). All of the paints sold under the name magenta are actually halfway between red and magenta, making them a rose-red. When mixed with a blue-violet paint they will become dark muted purples. 

Clematis under Deck, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2023 (No. 3519)

 

Down in the valley there is a historical area called mill park where the mill used to be. Last century the valley flooded taking with it all the homes, which is why no new construction is allowed downtown. There were some invasive vines on the trees which I pulled down. The painting is much sharper in real life, I will be replacing my scanner soon with a newer and better one after seeing the scan of the rainy day deck painting.  

Mill Park Greens, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2023 (No. 3520a)

 

These rapids are exactly where the old dam used to be before it was made obsolete and then demolished. For years there was a wide concrete wall with a gash in it which let the water through but about 20 years ago the town renovated the river and removed the remnants of the concrete structures. Now the water flows freely over the rocks and down stream. These are tough paintings to execute because the water is constantly moving which changes the reflections and textures. I used a combination of techniques to build up the sense of motion and sparkling highlights.

Humber River rapids, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2023 (No. 3521a)