Paintings on Drizzly Day

 

Setting off into the rain, I had to find shelter at Loyola park to make this painting. Everything was so soggy, you can see where the painting got smudged in my bike pack. When painting in overcast grey conditions, it is important to accentuate the colours and make them brighter than they appear. If you just paint what you see, the painting will look extremely dull and grey when you get it under regular light. It has something to do with how your eyes adjust in overcast conditions. On location, this painting looked incredibly brightly coloured, but now it looks about how I remember it being.

Melting Path Loyola Park, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, March 2024

Getting as far as the second foot bridge on the Lachine canal, I stopped to make a painting of the gantry crane, but then switched to this tree with crows on it. The crows were cawing loudly the whole time which was distracting at first, but actually inspired me to do the painting. The rain was very light, but you can see the effects it had on the painting, it created a marbled-effect which is quite neat. To maintain the contrast on the crows, I applied them in dark black, a mix of black (PBk6), magenta (PV19) and blue (PB60) straight onto the white paper. So the sky here is just the white paper. I did that out of necessity, had I applied the sky first, it would not have dried fast enough. Its a neat effect overall, just imaging crows cawing and cold misty rain on your face and you get the idea. The tree by the way, is beige and barky on the bottom but grey and smooth on the top half, so I call it the hybrid tree, there are dozens of them all along the canal.

Crows on Hybrid Tree, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, March 2024