Bike Path Walkley

We are lucky to have some bike paths in NDG and I am glad to hear that the borough is planning to build more of them. They also kept the Walkley and a few other paths open all season which allows for a longer bike riding season although I have not ridden for a few weeks due to icy conditions. With above zero temperatures on the forecast for the next week I would expect the ice to melt and perhaps I would be able to get out for a ride. In the painting, I started with the angles on the side wall of the grocery store, careful to leave the rectangles free where the traffic light and walk symbol appear to be illuminated. It was a very mushy painting due to salty water and humid conditions, but I managed to eke out a decent scene. The sunset at the end of the street was a bit of embellishment. A few people stopped to watch, but I was just into the painting and it did not look like much, the lady said I have some talent!  

Bike Path Walkley, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3685a)

World Inspired Landscapes: Liberia

 Liberia has a long and winding history, symbolized by the long and winding dirt road in the painting. When slavery was abolished in the United States, a semi-official group decided that freed slaves and free born descendants of slaves did not fit into what they considered to be the American culture and started to ship the people back to the west coast of Africa. It was a racist premise, and resulted in more death and harm than it did good. Upon arrival, those that survived the trip, they encountered resistance from local tribes and a harsh unforgiving environment they were not accustomed to. Over time, the United States invested heavily in Liberia as a type of Neo-colonialism, which elevated the status of the ex patriots to become ruling elite. The ruling elite of Liberia, former slaves and their descendants, ruled for a very long time, even enslaving local tribes people that were captured which is a bitter irony. After its tumultuous start, Liberia went through many political and military upheavals to this day. 

The long and winding road also symbolizes this series of paintings, which has reached about the half way mark, at country #97 or so, depending on how one counts countries. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so much, is that the number of countries in the world is imprecise. Certain disputed territories, unrecognized sovereignty, and unclear borders have made many regions of the world ambiguous or open to interpretation as to who recognizes what. There are even a small independently declared country consisting of one desolate island in the middle of a river that is a disputed area between two other countries. To make the series I went with the Alphabetical list of countries website easily found on the internet, and supplemented with library and Wikipedia research.

World Inspired Landscapes: Liberia, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3844b)

Metro Winter

Up and down Somerled the street and sidewalks were slushy and grey. The Metro grocery store was one of the few pops of warm colours, with orange-yellow interior lighting and pot lights under the snow-covered overhang. To accentuate the warm colours, I made the rest of the painting a pretty solid wall of grey and blue. Various sahdes and hues of grey adorned the facade, I managed to get them right on the first pass using combinations of purple (PB60 + PV55) yellow ochre (PY43) and black (PBk6). These mixtures look a lot darker when wet, so they have to applied a shade darker than you want them to appear in the finished painting. Judging the so called 'drying shift' takes quite a bit of experience and it is one of those things that makes watercolour a bit harder than other medias. Of course, I can hardly paint a line straight, and this composition had a lot of them, it ended up looking a little lop sided but I rotated the image and cropped to improve that aspect.
 

Metro Winter, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3682b)

Old Port with Snow and Ice

Making my way down to Bonadventure station by public transit, I walked the remaining distance to park Dieppe near the Old port. Along the way I stopped to paint this old silo structure with graffiti on the top. It also has a pink house, which is a structure that was there prior, and since painted pink by some clever art vigilantes. The foreground had a nice forest with rolling mounds of snow.

Old Silos with Graffiti,watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3683b)

The ice had broken up and refrozen several times creating a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours. Its the kind of scene I wanted to paint last year on a similar painting trip, but there was a strong blizzard that day. Getting the pattern right involved several applications of paint, I used combinations of perylene green (PBk31), phthalo green (PG7), indo blue (PB60) and yellow ochre (PY43). The sky colours were embellished a little to provide visual interest.

Broken ice, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3685b)

Taking a closer look, I tried a more impressionistic style to convey the patterns and colours of the broken ice flow with a setting sun reflection. Some of the Montreal skyscrapers were also seen in the reflection. The corner of the pier is seen at the top of the painting, that is the large platform where they set up the circus in the summer. I really hated this painting when I finished it on location, but now that I see it dried and on the blog, it really does capture the feeling of the ice flow even if its not a realistic depiction.

Abstract Ice, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3844b)

Fruiterie Entrance

After getting some lunch at the Snowdon bakery on Harley street I made a quick painting standing under the entrance of the Fruterie. With steady rain falling I had to find a scene from this vantage point but there was not much until a person opened the door and walked into the Fruiterie. Taking a quick mental snapshot of shape and colour of the jacket, I proceeded to outline the scene careful to get the door overlapping the figure, and the figure overlapping the background. The scene gave me a bit of trouble since the conditions were extremely moist and the paint was not quite drying anywhere. Wearing giant winter gauntlets didn't help either. Its not too often that I include figures in the landscapes, its something I have been adding in over the years. The main things are to make sure the figures are anonymous, and to integrate the form and colour with the surrounding landscape.

Fruiterie Entrance, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3684b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Lebanon

Lebanon is located in the tumultuous Middle East, historically it was been part of several empires and changed religious priorities from Christianity to Islam over the years. Nowadays it lies in the middle politically and culturally, with deep poverty but great wealth somehow coexisting. The most prominent aspect of the landscape in Lebanon is the iconic cedar tree, which is on their flag, and once to covered most of the land. With over-forestation and climate change the mighty trees are disappearing. Another feature that is typical for Lebanon is the amazing geology including the red canyon area which is full of flowing rock formations created by water, wind and sand erosion. The red rocks in the painting are only slightly exaggerated as compared to the real life images I could glean from the internet. Formations like this would have been created by fast flowing water that carved grooves and swirls out of the red rock. There is even a concert theater in the canyon that uses the geological formations to create seating areas and acoustics for the audience. They also light it up for shows, creating an eerie spectacle. 

World Inspired Landscapes: Lebanon, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, January 2024 (No. 3825b)

Way to Work

Funny story, I was heading over to the PERFORM Centre and stopped to make a quick painting along the way, when midway a group of people came down the adjacent path and one of them I recognized as the Vice President of the University with a group of potential philanthropists I found out later. I said hi to him and mentioned I was just taking a break and he said no problem nice painting. One of my students came out of the Centre and saw me painting, then I decided to wrap it up quickly and head in. On my way down the path, none other than the President of the University walks out of the Centre and down the path, and we said hello and I continued on my way. Its funny because when at work I sneak out to make paintings from time to time hoping not to be noticed by anyone, and today the whole brass was there. So the painting is a little more rushed than usual, I liked how the curve of the dome mirrored the curve of the path. Perhaps on a less conspicuous day I will try this one again.

Way to Work (sports dome), watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3684a)

World Inspired Landscapes: Latvia

After some chilly afternoon painting downtown I returned and did a part palette cleanser part World Inspired Landscape based on Latvia. Latvia has a history of being ruled by one of the regional superpowers, Germany for the most part, but more recently it was part of the former Soviet Union. Since the late 20th Century it has been independent and belongs to the European Union and other global groups. Quite wealth, Latvia also protects its nature with large reserves and one of the highest percentage of land that is still forested. Under Soviet rule much of the forest had been plowed over for inefficient farms, but since then Latvia underwent campaigns of land restoration and improved farming efficiency to use less land. A combination of forest and swamp, the landscape is mostly flat and a lot like one of its neighbors, Estonia. Perhaps it was just the gloomy blue and grey paintings I had done earlier today, but I felt like infusing this painting with warm, fall colours. Basically scribbling the paint on I quickly created this lush and colourful forest and swamp scene for the series. Just Lebanon and Liberia to go and I have reached the half way point of the world's many countries.  

World Inspired Landscapes: Latvia, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, January 2024 (No 2887b Located near No. 3834 Namibia)

Chilly Day Downtown Montreal

 

Nearby the Bonaventure metro exit, the one that is outside of the Bell Center Arena, I got a good view of Place Canada park, which frankly I was surprised to see something named like that in Quebec but I think it is part of the adjacent Cathedral unseen in the painting. The taller buildings (Place Ville-Marie is the prominent one in the background) were illuminated with the low sun, while the rest of the scene was mostly in shadow. Knowing that the paint would be moist, I tried to preserve a few key features including the contrast between the blue sky and the light orange-yellow building, the correct hue and value of the snow, and the little snow highlights on the dark tree branches. To make it work, I paused midway and walked to the end of the street and back, mostly to warm up, but also to let the paint dry a tad. When painting in winter you can also go back to the same spot because of the boot prints in the snow. I took public transit to get downtown today because riding the bike was not going to be feasible from NDG, although I saw people riding on the paths downtown.

Canada Park, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3682a)

 

Formerly Dorchester Boulevard, this street was renamed Rene Levesque by the politicians at the time. Its a very busy street almost a highway, and considering it was Sunday when I did this painting there was a lot of traffic. Fighting the elements, it was silly to take on a scene like this, but I knew the busy traffic just had to convey a sense of contrast and motion. Yellow dots from oncoming cars, and red dots for cars going in the other direction. Just the sky scraper buildings had some sun on them, the rest of the scene was in shadow. The painting was too moist to sign on the bottom so I inserted my initials on the building, which the old YMCA building, now its a YWCA.

Rene Levesque Boulevard Winter, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3683a)

Train Winter Blast

Montreal built a walking path between the escarpment and the train tracks, its about 1.5 km long beginning in NDG and ending down near the Glen hospital. In winter its blocked off but people still go there to stretch their legs or walk their dogs. This view is looking east, it shows a bit of the walking path and the train on the right side which actually went past as I was painting. In reality the scene was much wider but I compressed it to fit on a 5 x 7 inch format. In my paint bag I carried a 8 x 10" paper but today it was a little too cold to manage that size and with the snow coming down I knew the painting had to be done fast. The sky was added first using thin glazes of blue (PB15) and red-orange (PO73), and a touch of yellow (PY43). Getting the colour and value of the escarpment trees was the main challenge, it had to be blue-grey at a distance, and a beige-grey closer to the foreground. The bottom half of the painting was all done drybrush (the paper was dry, the paint was wet) in order to maintain the details. With 250 grams of salt per liter of water, the paint takes a long time to dry and I carry the painting home in a small drying rack in my attache bag. 

Train Winter Blast, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3681)

World Inspired Landscapes: Laos

Laos is located between several countries including China, Cambodia, Vietnam and others in the south Asian peninsula. It fell under French and American control throughout colonial times and the Vietnam war, and is now its own country. The wealth of the region comes largely from its central proximity, they are investing in train track infrastructure to act as a shipping and transportation hub. Another source of income are oil and gas, hydroelectric power, and a large rice sector. In the painting I depicted a typical terraced rice paddy on a mountainside, with more rice paddies stretching into the distance. The rest of the landscape consists of small jagged mountains, plains and lush jungle. As the infrastructure continues to grow, tourism is also growing in Laos, there are a lot of historical sites, nature, and unique food and culture to explore. I have known several people to go to this region of the world, usually they visit several of the surrounding countries, Thailand is popular for example.  Speaking of the painting, the composition was obviously built around the terraced mountain and its chartreuse rice paddies, and the rest of the scene was meant to be flowing and undulating to complement the shapes.
 

World Inspired Landscapes: Laos, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, January 2024 (No. 2659b located near No. 3824 Japan)

Iced Coffee Park

How to capture an ice blast in a painting? You stand there and grit your teeth and paint fast, that's how. Maybe I should make a new series of how to freeze your butt off while painting outdoors in the Canadian winter! Somehow it worked though, you can feel cold just by looking at this painting. The wind was blowing from the west down the train tracks and around the big apartment building unseen on my right. I knew the key was getting the value contrast between the trees and snow, and adding a splash of colour with just the green pine in the background, the raw sienna (caramel) benches and garbage bin, and the blue shadows. I was out of phthalo blue (PB15) but the indo blue (PB60) worked fine. Just getting the signature to be legible was a challenge. The atmospheric subtlety was captured by creating a yellowish glow on the top left of the sky, and a cooler greyish transition to the right side. A thin yellow ochre (PY43) wash did the trick, with a touch of synthetic yellow (PY97). Some snow crystals hit the painting creating a snow effect when it dried.

Iced Coffee Park, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3679a)

World Inspired Landscapes: Kyrgyzstan

Although they are right next to each other, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have very different geographies, the former is incredibly mountainous while the latter was extremely flat overall. Kyrgyzstan is at the foothills of the Pamir mountains at a junction with the Himalaya and other mountain ranges. Historically they were conquered by various regional powers, most notably the Turkish ancestors who seemed to have the greatest influence on their culture, which is a majority ethnic Kyrgyz. One of their hobbies is hunting with birds of prey, so I included one in the sky of the painting. The rest of the design shows endless interleaved mountains that become snowier the higher and farther you go. Originally I planned for peaks to show on all the mountains, but liked the seemingly endless heights that this design suggests by having most of the mountain tops running up and off the picture plane. Just one sharp peak stands in the distance. At the bottom of such mountains, the rockfall creates a situation for grass and trees to grow. Similar to Bhutan in composition, this is one the several mountainous compositions I have come up with for the series.

World Inspired Landscapes: Kyrgyzstan, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 2894b located near No. 3824 Japan)

World Inspired Landscapes: Kuwait version iv

 

The Kuwait painting that I posted recently was a bright and colourful rendition of a flat desert, but it did not capture the subtle pastel tones and subdued atmosphere that I had envisioned for the design. In this version I painted it on a square format to de-emphasize the horizontal aspect, and brought out more value contrast with less colour saturation. I actually like both paintings. When I embarked on this simple looking desert scene I sort of knew it would be very hard to pull off, and indeed, it took four version. Maybe next time it will just be a brush stroke of yellow for the sand and blue for the sky!

World Inspired Landscapes: Kuwait version iv, watercolour 6.5 x 6.5" cold press, January 2024 (No. 1581b in box next to No. 3824 Japan)

Winter Rink Trenholme Park

 

Taking the long way home I walked up through Trenholme park until I found some shelter under an overhang around the central building. Looking south there was just the winter rink covered in snow and the tree line in the background with some field lights. Working from top to bottom I established the white and grey elements, then dropped in the trees in successive layers which created a variety of blurry and sharp textural elements. Snow reflects grey and blue, and some yellow or orange depending on lighting conditions. You just have to really know the paint's moisture to complete a painting like this, and the salt makes it dry even slower. As always I had the small wooden rack to put the painting back in my bag without smearing it. Fortunately there are a number of sunny days coming up which should finally facilitate some decent winter paintings.

Winter Rink Trenholme Park, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3678b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Kuwait

 

Kuwait is an oil rich country in the Middle East that is primarily desert climate. On Google map and image search every scene was an expanse of flat sand. I remember Kuwait as being at the center of operation desert storm, the American invasion of the middle east in the early 90's. I even had a set of trading cards with all the people involved. At least it seems to have stabilized by now and Kuwait is prosperous, not to mention blazing hot. To compose the scene I went full on with the desert idea and only showed a desert. It seemed like a simple enough painting but getting it right was a challenge and I had to paint it out twice. Because there is so little visual information, it means that everything has to be close to perfect to look remotely good. A few key elements to hit were the two-toned sky with yellow cast, the contrast between horizon and sky, and the greyish to beige gradation in the foreground. I added some textural elements to the foreground so as to get a bit of depth perception.
 

World Inspired Landscapes: Kuwait, watercolour 6 x 9" watercolour paper, January 2024

Snow under pine trees

After returning some books at the library I stopped under the pine trees at the Benny sports complex and made a painting of the snow under the trees. A mild blizzard was going on around me but the copse of trees offered some decent protection from the elements. I started with the shadow under the tree, which was a greyish blue fading to white, then overlaid the tree trunks using a very dark brown, and the needles using yellow ochre. The pine needles were primarily perylene green (PBk31) with some phthalo green (PG7/PG36) and yellow (PY154 or PY97). The background was just daubed in at the end to give some depth and sense of the depth of snow.

Snow under pine trees, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3676b)

Mystery blue and green building

With nice weather and fresh snow I went for a walk and found a scene of the mysterious blue and green building that I have painted a few times before. You can see inside on google maps for some reason, it just looks like some kind of data server warehouse but from the outside it has the looks of some industrial plant. Perhaps the plant closed and was repurposed. At any rate, I enjoy the bright green and blue and how it played against the bright blue sky and fresh white snow. In the foreground, there is a row of tall oak trees that keep their leaves, albeit beige and orange, for the winter.

Mystery blue and green building, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3678b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Kiribati

Arriving at Kiribati on my list of countries to paint a picture of was exciting because I really had no idea where it was... Africa, Europe, somewhere in the ocean. Indeed it was somewhere in the ocean, the middle of the Pacific to be precise. It is in the Micronesian subregion of the Oceania region, which is in an easterly direction from Australia. The country is an archipelago, that is, a collection of small islands some of which are connected to each other by causeways. Having painted numerous tropical island countries in the series so far, I wanted to find an interior concept that featured the landscape without showing beaches and mountains. With a little research I learned that a major crop in the region is the giant taro marsh plant, which produces a nutritious, starchy root that can be prepared for food. It takes many years to mature, but the taro root can be stored underground for decades, and thus provides a convenient buffer against food shortages. In the painting, I added a local farmer to give a sense of the scale of these plants.

World Inspired Landscapes: Kiribati, watercolour 6 x 9" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3843a)

Insistent Tree Slushy Day, catalogue update

 

It was a cold an slushy day in NDG, with the weather calling for freezing temperatures it will be quite the mess out there for a little while. This painting was down on the Cavendish and Somerled corner looking back towards the insistent tree that continues to grow out of the old Royal Bank building foundation. It is taller than the bank now, and is looking to be quite full. I know one day they will cut it down, but so far the building has not been sold or rented out so the tree remains. The sun was setting, as depicted with a streak of orange paint (PO62) and some pastel colours in the cloudy sky.

Insistent Tree Slushy Day, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3680)

I updated the catalogue today and have calculated the final number of paintings for 2023, I did 510 paintings, which is less than the last few years, about the same as the number I did on the pandemic year. I knew the numbers would go down since I was grinding paintings the last few years mostly to learn my new paints. The 2023 paintings were more detailed, and many of the location paintings were 8 x 10". The number actually doesn't matter, they pile up in boxes now, and I have it very organized so that I can pull out a painting by looking at the catalogue or blog, then searching the numbered pile.

 

World Inspired Landscapes: Lesotho

 

Lesotho is one of the smallest Countries in Africa, despite being a sovereign country, it is located within the borders of South Africa. In history, Lesotho was the place where local indigenous tribes fled from Colonial rule because the landscape was mountainous and difficult to attack into. Over time it gelled into a political entity and became sovereign in the mid 20th century. Among its rich food and culture, Lesotho is known for its abundant water supplies, which it sells to South Africa. Water in the south part of Africa is incredibly scarce, a problem made worse by climate change, and inequity between rich and poor people. Having painted a lot African countries I came to understand the geological features. The land is mostly flat, with occasional low hills and mountains. The mountains tend to have jagged peaks and are surrounded by mounds of erosion covered in vegetation. In the painting, the middle ground shows wavy hills covered in greenery, fronted by eroded rock pillars. Rock pillars form when a chunk of insoluble rock protects the soft earth below it from erosion, as the land around it disappears, the pillar forms. I did a similar painting of Djibouti, albeit in much different lighting conditions.

World Inspired Landscapes: Lesotho, watercolour 6 x 9" watercolour paper, January 2024

Coffee Park Path in Winter

Here is a view of Coffee Park down by the train tracks looking west. With strong cold wind and freezing temperatures this one was a challenge, but at least a person passing by stopped to look and congratulated me on the nice painting. It made my day! The new scanner by the way is working great, it is easy to use and yields better images than the previous scanner I was working with. Its scan bed is slightly bigger too. To produce is by Cannon which generally makes fantastic stuff that you can trust like Logitech.

Coffee Park Path in Winter, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3675b)

World Inspired Landscapes: Kazakhstan

 

Continuing the World Inspired Landscapes series during the cold and gloomy weather, this one shows my impression of Kazakhstan, found in a very flat region in central Asia. All of the countries ending in 'stan' were once a part of the Persian Empire before they fell and split apart into different countries. There was a once a crossword clue 'number of STANS' and the answer was seven if I recall correctly. Looking into Kazakhstan on google maps and image search revealed one of the flattest countries, consisting of vast planes and steppes. The Mongols occupied this region in ancient times, it was ideal for their horses and way of life. To compose the painting I went with a vertical format to counteract the flatness of the landscape, and cut a river up through the center. Lush greenery grows adjacent to the water, which fades to dried grass then just expanses of gravel and sand. The colour transition was pure green, cool yellow, warm yellow, warm beige, beige, then cool beige and blue grey on the horizon. I did the water starting at the top with dilute turquoise (PG7 + PB15) then progressively adding more blue, then dark blue (Indo PB60), with a touch of magenta (PV55) at the bottom to darken it up. Design wise, I wanted the river to really pop against the otherwise bland scenery.

World Inspired Landscapes: Kazakhstan, watercolour 6 x 9" watercolour paper, January 2024

World Inspired Landscapes: Israel, State of Palestine

 

Doing the Israel, State of Palestine edition was a tricky one, even 3 years ago when I conceived of the project I knew this one would have issues. First of all, there is significant dispute over the borders as viewed domestically versus internationally. Since Canada's position is that there are two states, I decided to go with that perspective in designing the landscape. Recently, there has been a gruesome war going on in the region which has impacted many lives. From looking at the region I noticed a very flat and arid landscape with sparse vegetation and intermittent agricultural areas. Grapes are iconic to the region and also represent a point a contention, in that the land where grapes are grown has seen conflicts over the years. The top of the paining shows a blue and white sky representing Israel's flag, while the bottom of the painting represents green, red, black and white representing the internationally recognized flag of the state of Palestine. The painting's message is that these two areas are in great conflict but at the same time they are inextricably linked by history and geography.

World Inspired Landscapes: Israel, State of Palestine, watercolour 9 x 11" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3364)

World Inspired Landscapes: Jordan

Located in the middle east, Jordan is between several other countries in the region. Despite its proximity, Jordan seems to stay out of the politics of the region for the most part, they have plenty of resources available in the form of fossil fuels. The geography of Jordan is akin to the grand canyon, steep cliffs and eroded river beds criss-cross the landscape. In the painting, I depicted a river flowing between canyons, you can see the evidence of erosion on the rock faces, and the crumbled pebbles and sand of the river. The rocks had a neutral ochre hue, probably a limestone or sandstone. Other hills had that iron oxide red appearance. There are some famous archeological sites in Jordan, for example the cliff-side monument that featured prominently in an Indiana Jones movie. It looks like it would be a hot place to visit, with the occasional oasis. 

World Inspired Landscapes: Jordan, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, January 2024 (No. 3662)

Cold Sundown on Cavendish

The start of the year so far has been cold, grey and no snow to speak of. After picking up some items at the grocery store on Sherbrooke and Cavendish, I made a quick painting of the scene looking down Cavendish towards the train bridge underpass. The wind, blasting from west to east, froze my face and partially froze the paints despite having salt in the water. Next time I will need more salt and remember to put the hood on! At least the rest of my gear held up and my hands were not cold. When painting in the winter I only bring one brush because its not possible to fiddle with brushes when wearing giant gauntlet mitts. It may be tempting to take off the gloves to fiddle with the gear but this is a big mistake as I learned in the past. Not only will the hands be cold for the rest of the trip even with the gloves back on, it will cause an accumulation of cold damage to the hands and persistent pain for the whole season. Since I sorted out the glove situation awhile back I have not had any major issues. I wear wool wrist gators, insulated gloves, and a deerskin mitten-style gauntlet covering. I used to have more layers but it actually was counterproductive, and its important to be able to ball up your hands inside the getup when you are walking so that the fingers wont get too cold. In the end there is nothing you can do to prevent getting cold, other than stay indoors, or get those new heated mitts which feels like cheating to me. At least the results are interesting, in the example above you immediately 'feel' the coldness just by looking at the painting and noticing the ice crystals that formed texture in the paint. I just suggested the cars at the bottom of the painting with some simple shapes, green windshield and some red taillights. 

Cold Sundown on Cavendish, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3678)

World Inspired Landscapes: Jamaica

 

Jamaica needs little introduction, its a large island in the Caribbean sea known to many people as a vacation destination. Like most of the islands, it was once a a part of the British colonial rule, and came into its own in the mid 20th century. To make the painting I looked up some information on the internet and perused Google map to get some ideas. The image is more or less a typical coastal scene with dramatic waves crashing against the rocks. The rocks were a kind of dark orange, textured pumice stone with small clumps of vegetation. Iguanas used to be abundant on the island until the mongoose was introduced to control rodent populations. The mongoose preyed on young iguanas until they were all but extinct. In recent times, the mongoose population is culled, and iguanas have started to return to certain areas. Unfortunately, deforestation is reducing what little habitat they have available, which is mostly inland. In the painting, I show an iguana on the sea coast, which would be like a historical idea since they don't seem to actually live there anymore. For the water, I used an array of techniques and varied the colour from navy, to blue, to turquoise near the shore. 

World Inspired Landscapes: Jamaica, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3363)