Lock on Lachine canal rainy day

I almost made it home, but the rain came back full force along the Lachine Canal. I stopped at the lock, where there was a convenient metal gazebo-like structure that offered some good protection. The scene was rather simple to paint, about 10 well chosen diagonal brushstrokes, then dark detailing over top when dry. The greenish colour in the water is the umber paint (Br7) which is a tea with milk colour, and dark blue (PB60). As it dries, you add little hatch marks, the early ones blur, and the latter ones are sharp as the under-painting dries.

Lock with reflections, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4010)

Many of the old factories like this one were converted into condos, they even installed a forest on top. In the foreground you can see the lock, and between the two structures is part of the canal bike path. Eventually the rain died down and I managed to make it home with some pretty soggy paintings in the pack. Luckily my gear held up and everything underneath was dry!

Converted condos near lock, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4011a)

Foggy buildings with train bridge

Thick fog descended on Montreal, enveloping the highest skyscrapers in shrouds of mist. Seeking shelter under a highway off ramp, I made this painting of the iron train bridge and spectacular background scene using watercolours. When the painting was finished, it had a moist and glassy sheen to it, and the colours really popped. Carefully stowing it in the bike pack so as to avoid smudging, I geared up and got on to the next location.

Foggy buildings with train bridge, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4009b)

Pigeons under train bridge

Getting as far as Guy street I turned south, rode past Little Burgundy, and stopped under the train bridge and Boulevard Ville Marie highway interchange. Actually I was standing under one of the off ramps, since under the bridge it was chock full of pigeon excrement and feathers. One hopeful bird flapped down from under the train bridge where they roost, and looked expectantly at me for some handouts. Up in the rafters there were dozens or maybe hundreds of them roosting. You can see some apparition-like pigeons up in the iron work. This is one of those painting that I will remember for sure, standing there in relative dryness, with rain all around under a noisy bridge painting pigeons.

Pigeons under train bridge, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4008a)

Looking to the left revealed this bizarre scene, there was a down ramp curving underneath an up ramp, and some kind of off ramp above my head. A concrete wall and sturdy fence (which I omitted) made sure it was safe to be here, I was standing right next to the sidewalk actually. It did smell of urine here, though hopefully not from me. We just watched a program about architecture and they showed a decadent art studio with high ceilings, fancy paintings on the wall, and hundreds of paint brushes neatly arranged. And I said to Cilei, today I painted pigeons and cars under a urine-smelling train bridge, that was my studio. 

On off up down ramps, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4009a)

Some soggy paintings in Montreal

There was definitively no way to go paint watercolours in Montreal today with constant rain and thundershowers. Or was there? After investing in rain boots, rain pants and a rain jacket, I tested the theory by bike. At Park Girouard, also known as park NDG or Vimy park, they had a 4 x 4 meter awning set up with nothing under it, so I could set up my bike there and make a few paintings. This one shows the baseball diamond next to the central brick structure, with plenty of rain coming down. Throughout the day I tried to keep warmth in the colours to avoid things seeming too dreary.

Baseball diamond rainy day, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4006a)

 

Looking down towards Sherbrooke there was a lot of slick brickwork on the ground, grass and trees. I left the central area white to provide a bit of visual contrast, and to break up the continuous greenish grey. It was really coming down hard, so I waited for the rain to abate before moving on.

Tree in park Girouard, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4007b)

 

It didn't take long before the deluge returned, and I had to find shelter again to make more paintings. This time I stood under the structure at Westmount park looking out at the pond. A fence with vines was in the foreground. The pond has an odd raised area, like a water-bridge you can see in the foreground behind the fence. It was awfully difficult to paint, I was cramped up into a little corner where there was rain protection.

Westmount park pond with fence, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4007a)

Waiting out the thunderstorm I made one more from the nook, this time looking out to the left, where you can see the weird water bridge/platform. The added bonus today was a complete lack of people, normally on a nice Saturday this location would be a zoo.

Water bridge in pond, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4006b)

Memory of supermoon over fishing village

 

On the way back from our walk along the boardwalk, some passer-bys said, 'do you see the moon?' and we turned around to see something like this painting. The moon seemed large on the horizon, and it glowed with an amber-orange light. A strong vertical reflection beamed down onto the harbor. Underneath the moon was the fishing village, partially illuminated. In the last light, a heron was finishing up its day of catching fish, and eventually flew off. I almost composed the heron flying past the moon but that idea seemed a little cheesy and distracting from the spectacular lunar effect. The painting was done from memory, as we gazed at the scene I tried to memorize the details, although I did use google to find a picture of the North Rustico fishing village from this approximate vantage point albeit during the day. Its a neat painting, this year has been pretty good for lunar events after the total eclipse.

Supermoon over fishing village memory, watercolour 6 x 10" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3912)

More scenes of Westhaven neighborhood

 

I did a painting of this exact scene recently but it was a pile of rubbish in the foreground. Since then, the community garden people have planted a whole row of decorative flowers which grew quite well. A few of the old timers water them and the plants get sun all day here. I made sure to preserve the brightest possible reds and yellows, and maintain the white paper in order to make the flowers pop. The rest of the scene is done quick with neutral brown, green and yellow, while the fire hydrant anchors the composition. When I say something anchors the composition, it is an element that keeps your eye moving around the subject matter. Without the fire hydrant, the diagonal road element would be distracting and cause the eye to wander off the picture plane. Its actually a pretty unusual composition this painting, most of the elements of interest are lined up in a vertical row, but somehow it works.

Community yellow white red flowers, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4005a)

 

How many times have I painted this store? A lot, and from many different angles. This time, I am looking through the facade from a side view standing across the street. Getting the perspective right is always difficult, I hold my brush up to the scene to approximate the angle. Instead of fruit, there was a pile of boxes out front, but I wanted the painting to be a bit more inviting so made ambiguous red orange and green fruits instead. The red thing in the middle is a mailbox.

Fruiterie Cite perspective, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4005b)

Bus over canal and bridge chaos

I tried this scene before of the city bus on the bridge from the other angle but did not quite capture the effect I was after. This time, I composed the scene on the vertical format, and eliminated any kind of foreground to give a feeling of plunging into the canal. Just a thin layer of metal with concrete seems to hold up the city bus. Actually, I like the way the bus and bridge and canal are all melded together. It was a very difficult painting to pull off, it helped that I bought a new Holbien #4 the other day which gives sharp lines. This bridge connects Lasalle/Upper Lachine to Ville st Pierre.

Bus over canal cloudy day, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3997b)

 

Looking to the right, and there was a view of where the bridge meets the ground, and part of the small park in the foreground. A tree anchors the composition, and I put my initials in place of the graffiti that was there in real life. I stared at this scene for quite some time trying to figure out how to paint it, then I just figured, you got to paint it the way it is. With the new Holbein brush I outlined most of the key details with black paint, then went about filling it in piece by piece. For a small painting it packs a lot of visual interest and really conveys the chaos of the bridge at rush hour.

Bridge chaos, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3998a)

Campus complicated

At lunch hour I sat in some shade and made a painting of the facade of the Science Pavilion in relative peace. Until a student orientation tour group showed up and sat all around me and ate a pizza lunch, they talked a lot but it didn't bother me much. I've looked at this scene many times and never saw a way to paint it, until today when I thought, just paint it ugly. The complicated mishmash of grey metal, black cladding, yellow-orange brick and green tinted glass makes for a chaotic painting. But in the end it came together into a decent painting. 

Campus complicated, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3998b)

Eaton Center

The last painting was this chaotic scene  just up the street from where I painted Sunflowers in the City. When I saw the Sunflower scene, I said to myself, if you bike past these scene without painting it, you may as well turn in your watercolour kit and retire. Luckily I did the painting, and got one more iconic scene done of the Eaton Center. The size of the sign was exaggerated so that I could do the brushwork, although the more distant sign is more or less to scale. To paint the traffic, it was a matter of applying a series of interlocking 'mushroom' shapes, then applying the red, green, and various washes. A row of pedestrians can also be seen across the street. To be honest I was glad to be standing by my bike painting these scene rather than sitting in one of those cars!

Eaton Center, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 4004b)

In the zone, downtown Montreal

You can probably guess which dépanneur brand this is, judging from the yellow and orange sign at bottom. A prominent ATM sign helped anchor the composition in the lower half. But the main interest was the distinct apartment on top, it looked like a retrofitted Victorian-era architecture sitting atop a busy street. I fit my bike between a sidewalk planter and the pedestrian thoroughfare, must have been a hundred people walk by and a few talked to me. It took awhile to do this painting but it was not hard. I established the outlines with carbon black, then worked through the various washes and textural elements. It was one of the scenes that was so good, all I had to do was get it down on paper. Funny thing, is that ATM is an English acronym, automated teller machine, it is supposed to be DAB in French distributeur automatique de billets.

Distinct apartment over dépanneur, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 4003b)

 

When I took a little detour after working, I didn't expect to make this many paintings. At any rate, I discovered Hope Street and this cool mural across from Hector Toe Blake Park. The mural was marked with Roiks ?, Achoa ? and Peter-McGill who were presumably the artists. The question mark is because they used a small but neat 'tag' which is a graffiti artist squiggle that represents their names. Its not often I paint other people's art, but I wanted to understand the colour combinations, which were yellow, yellow-orange, violet (on the magenta side) and some darker blue-violets. The rest of the mural had a woman sitting on the ground, and she seemed to have some meaning. The rest of the scene was like blocks of lego. I captured the asphalt with the same purple mix used in the mural plus carbon black, and some blue for reflections. Actually, I echoed all of the mural colours in the rest of the painting by using muted or pastel version where possible.

Hope Street Mural, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4002b)

 

I was just hallucinating by now, and mostly because of the heat and humidity! The buildings were done in a semi-invisible way where the sides seem to melt into the sky. A few lucky backwashes made the bus seem to glow. To complete the painting, a large graffiti initial was added and some green-yellow grass overlaid on the mostly brownish foreground. I think the lightness of the buildings is neat considering how big and heavy they really are, and the foreground elements provide a chunky, textured contrast.

Cityscape with STM bus, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4004a)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian Centre for Architecture

 

No signs here, the building on the left is the end of a very long and serious looking building called the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Ironically, you have these kind of pre-fab looking condos surrounding it from different eras. The black and white ones are brand new, the brick one is probably 1990's era, and the tile and balcony job on the edge is likely 1960's. Hopefully I did the CCA building some justice here. 

CCA Building and condos, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4001b)

 

This was part of the fancy facade on the other side of the CCA building, it looks like a refurbished old stately manor, or perhaps some expensive government building from yesteryear. It was too challenging and architecture is not my favorite thing to paint but every now and then I will give it a go. This one would require a big piece of paper but I was only carrying 5 x7" today on my bike.

Fancy Facade, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4002a)

Its hard to capture the whole building, this segment would be about one third of it. I put my initials on one of the big wall posters... so now they are having a showing of my artwork.

CCA Building frontal view, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 4003a)

Everywhere a sign...

As an artist I may be one of the few who gets excited by a scene like this, believe it or not this was exactly how it looked. In fact there were even more signs in the distance that I left out! The reason for all the signs had something to do with 'no dogs' and 'no parking', but if you wanted to park and walk your dog, you would have to stop, then turn right, but only right, definitely not left. Oh, and no parking between 9 and 11 on Wednesdays between April and October on even numbered years. Don't forget or you will get a ticket.

Everywhere a sign, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4001a)

 

Speaking of signs, I may as well throw this one into the blog. Its the on ramp at the end of Fort street, the main way to get out of downtown by car, but not bike. There was a sign that said no bikes, or walking. But maybe dogs were allowed, there was no sign for that. 

On Ramp, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 4000b)

Scenes in Cabot Square, white gravel

Cabot Square is down by Atwater station, it tends to be a meeting area for a lot of local people and is the focal point of some of the protests that happen downtown. It was pretty tame today, although I have to admit that the aroma of marijuana was very potent and close by as I painted here, it did seem to make made for a more most relaxing painting trip...

Tree in Circle, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 3999a)

 

The white gravel is adorned with sculpted concrete benches. On the left is a very old structure probably used to sell papers or snacks, and in the background is the new Atwater metro access point. Its hard to paint these scenes when everything is grey and there is no skyline. The tones are subtle and the textures are important. I used a lot of black paint to create contrast where needed (PBk6). It was just that curve that caught my eye, the whole composition runs off of it.

Curving bench, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 4000a)

 

These permanent balloons have been there for many years now, they are starting to show wear. On the right is a very tall statue with a person, I assume to be Cabot, standing on top (unseen in painting). I just wanted to paint the curve of the statue's base, and get its perspective. The bark of the tree was done with one quick brushstroke, a side swipe with semi-moist brown. I make the dark brown by mixing burnt umber (PBr7) with a touch of indo blue (PB60). I probably lingered around this location a bit longer than usual, you could say that it was a high point of the trip.

Balloons and Statue, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 3999b)

Sunflowers in the City

 

Along Blvd Robert-Bourassa the city of Montreal invested heavily into parks, paths and manicured gardens including these sunflowers. It was a tricky painting to do while standing next to a noisy road and a busy sidewalk, but I really liked how it turned out. Part of the idea was to have the big sunflower kind of melting into he sky, which was starting to turn yellowish-orange with the low sun. For the traffic light, I stippled the yellow on to try and emulate a bright light, its the first time trying that and it worked out pretty good. Its a memorable painting indeed.

Sunflowers in the City, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4040a)

 

At the same location, there was a great view of all the new mega condos that have been built up around the Molson Areana where the Habs play. The buildings are steel and tinted glass with a variety of patterns and colours that are depicted in an abstract fashion. The highway cuts across the front of the scene, and I tried the stippling technique on the red light. I would imagine this scene surprises some people who know Montreal from the old days, most of these buildings are only the last 5 years or so. The sky line is a veritable wall of glass windows now.

Skyline and highway, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4040b)

 

 

Two buildings with character, what's up with August?

What's up with August? By my count there are over 90 paintings this month alone, owing mostly to the two vacations we took to the lake and to PEI, but there were plenty of paintings in between. When I set out my 'art agenda' this year I thought of doing less numbers of paintings with bigger sizes, but in fact I made more paintings than before including bigger sizes. Well, it just means a carton will be filled up a bit faster! This scene is another majestic building, the Greenshields building that was built on behalf of a wealthy 19th century Scottish-born industrialist of the same name. It is set up on a steep embankment and has an imposing three stories with arched windows, and a semi-circular protruding segment. Two other segments including an identical wing are all connected. It must have been an office building, but now it appears to be for low income housing if I were to guess. I am glad the painting carries all the feeling of the proportions and imposing architecture, its easy to get this kind of painting wrong. I've gotten better at scaling things by paying attention to how the roof line plays against the horizon line, and recording the perspective. 

Greenshields Building, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3995b)

 

Somewhere in the plateau, near the Sherbrooke metro station, there is an old auto shop completely painted beige. Usually the colours is what attracts my attention, but this time it was the complete absence of colours, nearly everything was beige. The building was the same colour as the ground and the piles of earth. It looks a lot like this is a demolition and condo development waiting to happen, I kind of doubt the plan is to open the auto shop again. A few locals talked to me, and I pointed out that these paintings are meant to capture the neighborhood, especially in areas that are fast gentrifying. They seemed to appreciate that fact.

Beige autoshop, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3996a)

Magestic new condos in Old Montreal

Painting these condos is difficult because they had over 17 floors, but I could only depict about half of that despite my best efforts. At least you get the kind of queasy feeling of looking up at these giant monoliths, it is a scene with a majestic air,  perhaps a touch of brutalist architecture. In the foreground there is a light rail train that passed by every 15 minutes or so. To paint this scene I established the tops of the buildings, trying to fit in all five but only getting in about three and and a half of them. Next, I made 17 lines and five columns per building, but in retrospect I needed 34  lines and 10 columns to get in the correct number of windows. My math was 17 x 5 = 85 windows per building, plus balconies and the side windows.  At some point during painting I just gave up on the architectural aspects and math and just filled in the kinds of colours and lines that represented the general feel of these massive condos. Stop thinking and paint. I am down on a bike path looking up a steep embankment, which adds an ominous feeling to the composition. 

Majestic condos and rail train, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3905)

Views around the Peel basin

The Peel basin used to be a shipping and receiving area for boats and trains, but now it is for festivals and condo developments. This view is looking west, in the distance you see the Atwater market clock tower, and on the right is the bike path. Hundreds of bikes and pedestrians zoomed and walked by as I did these paintings. 

Lachine canal near Peel basin, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3994a)

 

The train bridge goes over the bike path at this point. I am wedged between the bike path and the wall looking up at the underside of the bridge. I liked the tiny sliver of sky up in the top left, and wondered if I could compose a painting that relied almost entirely on less than 1/4 of the space. Without the sliver of sky, the whole painting becomes a jumble of grey and black. There was also a small shrub growing on top of the structure, and you can see one of the new condos in the distance. A giant graffiti was converted into my initials. I am the opposite of a graffiti artist, they put the paint onto the landscape, I put the landscape onto the painting!

Graffiti under train bridge, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 3994b)

 

This scene is off to the left of the Farine Five Roses, and in the foreground is the same festival area that had the shark and the titanic inflatables at the music show last night. A huge new condo is nearly complete, it has completely changed the skyline of old Montreal.

Changing skyline, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3995a)

Condo Skyscrapers Peel Basin music festival

 

Just around sunset I made this painting down at the Peel Basin where they were holding a house music festival. Painting to the beats, this scene shows some of the tall skyscraper condos with a colouurful sunset with heavy clouds in the background. The colours were embellished a bit, after the amazing sunsets in PEI. Tall condos are hard to capture since there are like 20 floors with 5 columns of windows for a total of 100 windows each! To simplify, I painted the window colour first, let it dry, then made a series of hatch marks to depict the windows.

Skyscraper condos and sunset, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3901b)

 

The festival had large inflatable decorations including this great white shark in a wave. In the background is the iconic Farine Five Roses sign on top of the Canada Malt factory. It was a tricky painting with lots of details, I wasn't sure the image would make any sense, and perhaps without adequate explanation it is quite a bizarre scene. A great white shark leaping out of the Peel basin!

Great white shark, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 3993a)

 

On the other side of the stage was a giant inflatable Titanic looking like it was sinking into the crowd. A lot of people were gathered around the multi-coloured stage and having a good time grooving to the tunes. To paint a crowd of people like this, first apply the outlines of people, kind of like lollipops with shoulders, then paint in broad brushstrokes of colours, followed by a few clothing and hair details. The main goal is to capture the energy of the crowd.

Titanic and house music, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 3993b)

Goldie's Pub

When I was painting the Parmalat factory some people at Goldie's pub leaned out the windows and were talking to me about the art. One of them was a local photographer who knew things about the community, like the condo building down the street used to be a hotel. They admired my painting, and said, why don't you paint Goldie's pub? At the time the sun was behind it and I was done painting for the day, so I returned to the location the next morning to get the scene with full morning sun. For a small painting it is very hard to pull off, all of the white highlight elements have to be left as blank paper and then filled in when the surrounding are dry. Above the pub there are several floors of apartments which you see as balcony over the sign. I took some liberties with the signage, adding my Instagram handle PJDART42 into the painting. These are really tedious paintings than can't be rushed, typically I do something like this on a weekend where I have more time and opportunity to paint. Anyways, I was glad to paint this small community fixture in all its humble glory. 

Goldie's Pub, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 4030b)

Back on home turf

Somehow we dodged the bad Montreal weather when we went to PEI, then when we returned, the weather was back to fantastic here. The painting was done in the Westhaven neighborhood I believe this is Elmhurst street. In the background is Sherbrooke west, and the City Fruiterie is the little yellow blob in the middle. The apartments on the right are all different colours and styles, and a man was tending to the grass and shrubs growing on the narrow space between the sidewalk and the buildings. Just a few meters of greenery can really add to the ambiance.
 

View up Elmhurst, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3989)

A small garden and vegetable planting area can be found in Westhaven neighborhood on a plot of land owned by Renot Depot. There were still a lot of colourful flowers growing here, although I embellished them quite a bit. In the background is the famous field where I painted tables and chairs.  

Westhaven community garden flowers, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 3990a)

 

There is a dairy manufacturer that has dangerous silos full of coolant that can explode at any time. We know that because we get a flyer every so often explaining that there is a siren, and you should close the windows if you hear it. Who knew making yogurt and milk was so dangerous. The building is a mishmash of different architectural eras, you see some early 19th century brick construction along side of modern prefab, and the shiny drums.

Parmalat two silos, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3991a)

 

And there are up to six silos, this painting shows three of them with one tucked behind the tree. When I select scenes like this the tree and grass are important, since the whole theme of my paintings has to do with the co-existence of nature and urban development. To do this kind of painting, you have to paint the sky first, leaving the shapes of the silos blank. When dry, you can carefully add the streaks of colour using neutral grey, blue, and white (aka blank paper). There is no white paint used in any of my paintings. Even if I had white paint it would not produce such a crisp effect, it would look cloudy and gummy. Its one of the challenges of watercolour, especially if a painter is moving over from oil or acrylic where you can use white paint.

Parmalat four silos, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3992a)

 

 

August 2024 palette with colour notes on PEI trip

This blog is mostly artists notes and other thoughts on the trip. If we go back, its a good review of what I learned, and for anyone wanting to paint there maybe it would help too!

Here is a scan of one of the palettes I brought on our PEI trip, the other one was identical but without the crack and wire holding it together. The picture is blurred a bit since I used the flatbed scanner. This is normally the one I use in winter, which is why it cracks up like that, but in the summer I bring it as a second palette. If you run out of paint, you need to squeeze out fresh paint and let it dry for about a day, so the second palette allows for continual painting. However, I only used one of the palettes on the PEI trip to do 35 paintings, the only colour that ran out on the last day was yellow. 

When we went to Brazil last year I regretted not bringing raw sienna, so this time I had a blob of it on the mixing area in the top left. It came in handy, but caput mortuum would have been more useful, its a neutral dark red (PR101) that would have been great to make the shadows of the red cliffs. I came up with an alternative, which was red ochre (fourth from left, top row), with purple (PV55) and dark blue (PB60) which are 6th and 7th on the top row. When dried, the paint blobs tend to look dark, and almost black in some cases. Actually, sometimes I forget which green is which they look so similar when they are dried on the palette. Not much has changed in my palette setup since the last update where I detailed the pigment names and codes.

In PEI, the colours were very soft and neutral, almost pastel-like. Getting those half chroma hues required careful colour mixing, and cutting some of the mixes with yellow ochre (PY43, 1st on top row) helped a lot. Most scenes had a warm glow, while the water brought in a wide range of colours. Bright turquoise was also present on doors of houses, shanties, and in the water sometimes. There is a cobalt turquoise that would have been perfect, but I stopped carrying cobalt pigments awhile ago. To make turquoise I relied on phthalo green (PG7) with phthalo blue (PB15) mixed with just the right amount of water. Perylene green (PG31) was very useful, the pine trees had almost the exact same dark green. Magenta (PR122) and the oranges (PO62, PO73) were useful for pink skies. If you looked carefully, PEI had a wide range of colours, and I think the people who live there also really enjoy having colours in their lives. Hopefully the paintings I did capture the colours and vibes of PEI to some extent.
 

Garden of Hope New Glasgow

New Glasgow has a special meaning to our family since my maternal grandmother Alice was born there and met my grandfather who was from the nearby Wheatly River. This garden is called Garden of Hope, it is maintained by the owner of the adjacent restaurant and cafe (who also owns the pizza place down the street). Not knowing where the cemetery was, I asked the clerk who did not know, but she went and got the aforementioned owner who grew up in the area. She knew where it was, and also knew of the Dickieson family, including Roy and Ester she mentioned. At any rate, Cilei and I made it out to the cemetery to see Nana and Grandpa's final resting spot, which was really peaceful and had a wonderful view of the entire countryside which is fitting. I made this painting back down at the garden, it shows a blue deck chair and some of the manicured flowers with a sparkling lake in the background. Its the last of the PEI painting to blog about, I had two more but they didn't quite work out and perhaps I will repaint them. I also wanted to paint a scene of the supermoon over the fishing village from memory, as we looked I tried to memorize the details. Aside from all the painting, we had a great time and enjoyed the fresh seafood, beaches, and friendly people. Would recommend.  

Garden of Hope New Glasgow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 3988)

Victorian-Era Street, Charlottetown

 

Continuing with the PEI painting blogs, here is the one painting I made in Charlottetown. This street was featured on the tourist map and brochures, they call it Victorian lane or something to that effect because the buildings are more or less preserved from the old days. Being from Montreal this type of scene was no surprise, most of Verdun and Ville st Henri have this type of architecture, complete with cafes, restaurants and sun umbrellas. It was definitely hopping here. We walked around the corner and found an almost empty patio on the art cafe, and had a decent meal of fish burger and beef burger. To paint this, the perspective needs to be enough to give the illusion of depth, and the crowd of people just needs to capture the energy, not all the precise detail. The big tree anchors the composition, it prevent the eye from sliding off to the left, and draws the view from the background architecture back into the foreground elements. It was a neat downtown, but I have to say that all of PEI seems to close at 5PM, and restaurants at 8PM, so we really had to plan our days around that!

Victorian-Era Street, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3904)

Miscellaneous sky effects

Miscellaneous sky effects included sundown, sunset, dusk, and the moon in PE. There was a super moon one night and we saw it while walking back from the fishing village on the community-made boardwalk. This painting however, shows the sun going down over the fishing shanty. As I painted, a lady walked by and said she knew the owner of the shanty, I said that the shanty would become famous on instagram! You see the lobster traps piled up in front. Fishermen would occasionally gather in the shanty at the end of the day and cook fish and talk loudly. It was quite a cultural immersion.

Sunset over shanty and lobster traps, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3975b)

 

At the back of the cottages there is an outdoor swimming pool surrounded by a fence. In the background was a very long field of green beans, and the dark pine trees surrounding it, and a creamsicle and cotton-candy sunset. With orange light, the green looked almost beige on the horizon. The pool which was bright blue, also had a reduction in chroma towards grey. I was really excited to paint this scene, because it had blue (cool) in the foreground, and orange (warm) in the background. If I were to repaint this on the horizontal format it would be even more impactful.

Sunset over field of beans with swimming pool, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3981a)

 

At the end of the day, the moon rose on the south side, and it reflected the golden light from the descended sun. Cows in a hillside pasture had an eerie amber glow. It was nearly impossible to try and paint this scene with almost no light, but I could not resist making a painting that I could call 'Moon over Cows', kind of like when I painted 'Crow on a Pile of Snow'. Its another one I might try and repaint to get the cow details right, and widen the aspect to 5:4.

Moon over Cows, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (No. 3983a)

Scenes of Fishing Boats

The fishing boats in North Rustico PE were mostly idle, with the occasional one going out with a boat full of tourists. In the painting, you see the many fishing rods lined up, they would be used by the tourists to try and catch fish in the deep sea. From the looks of it, they were catching very small fish, I saw a few boats come back, then the captain would gut the fish and throw the entrails into the water where gulls were waiting. I made a painting of that chaotic scene, showing gulls hovering over a fishing boat. In this painting, I chose the boat to paint because it had a Montreal Canadiens sticker on it (not seen in the painting), and the scene was quite dramatic considering how quiet it was, and that I was the only person in the entire area. It was about an hour to sundown, so the colours were still clear and bright, with intense sparkles on the back-lit water. Getting the boat right was a matter of careful observation and perspective. My initials are on the life preserver.

Sun over fishing boat, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3903)

For a small piece of paper this was a real challenger of a painting. There was a huge row of boats tied to a long dock that connected to the main dock by a series of ramps. Everything was sort of bobbling around. The sparkling water looks neat. I knew that the horizontal slats on the central dock were key to getting the whole scene to make sense. I painted something similar in Amsterdam many years ago, an overhead view of boats on a canal. So I had that painting in my mind as I completed this one.

Row of fishing boats, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3987a)

 

Here is a closeup frontal view of one of the fishing boats. The vessels all looked to be in good repair, and they ran on diesel fuel. If we had more time I might have made more paintings of the fishing boats, they are very technical to paint. Perhaps there are some like this around Montreal.

Fishing boat at dock, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024 (No. 3987b)