Some remaining piles of snow, near place st Henri

Looking for some snow to paint I found these remaining piles in the parking lot behind the Place st-Henri metro station. Behind this scene there used to be trees and scrub brush, but the city came by recently and cut it all down. The likely reason was that homeless people had set up tent encampments in the brush, in fact there were still a few old tents piled up along the fence. A train went by, up on the embankment behind the trees which I tried to sketch in with the paint. Painting piles of snow involves wet-in-wet, then when its dry, some dry-brush texture on top. That gives the softness of snow, with the gritty look of dirt and mud.

Snow piles with train, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

 

Here is the same scene on the horizontal. Today I had three drying racks with me, one for 5 x 7", one for 6 x 7.5" and one for 8x10". This allowed me to do one painting, then quickly go to the next one while the first one dried. Since it was only +4℃ today there was no trouble with the painting, and I could dress with moderate insulation. It felt more like early April than late December. The wash used for the snow pile was a three hue wash, that is, pale yellow transition to light violet, then a light blue. I left a sliver of white at the top for a glow-effect. Getting three hues to blend together seamlessly is a challenging technique, one has to avoid backwash or hard edges.

Snow pile parking lot, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024