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)
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