Still Life: complex things

With atrocious weather, mix of snow and rain, it was more opportunity for doing still life inside the condo. Here are mixed nuts in a tupperware, there were cashews, almonds, spicy peanuts, pistachios, and hazelnuts, all salted. I made most of the outlines first with a paintbrush, then filled in the shapes and surrounding areas, follwoed by texturing. Its tempting to start with pen or pencil for complex things, but it ruins the edge effects. If pen and pencil are visible in a watercolour, then technically speaking, its called 'mixed media'. 

Mixed nuts, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

This old chinese food container is filled with bag ties and elastics intermingled. I first painted the outlines of most of the bag ties, leaving gaps for ooverlaps, then worked in the coloured elastics. Adding pale shadows and dark spots, along with additional detailing helped create the effect. To get a bag tie out of the pile requires chop sticks. 

Bag ties elastics, watercolour 4 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Finnaly, here is a handful of old defunct keys, although one of them opens my parents front door. I wont say which ones in case somebody tries to copy it off my painting. Like, my painting is so hyper realistic you could make a copy of the key! Just looking at it now, and some of the keys actually look hyper realistic, like the bottom left around the key ring, I really got the metallic glare and reflections. I suppose all the still life practice is paying off. I did a set on 'shiny things' awhile back, and the famous 'tomato with sunglasses' more recently. 

Keys, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  

Still life: Christmas decorations ornaments

Going back some time, my Grandmother on Dad's side once had made I believe, these types of decorations you see in the painting, the house in the middle. Its made of cardboard, transparencies, and plenty of sparkles. Actually, this version was made by my mom based on the original design, I have two of them here for Christmas decorations. On the right is a small wooden soldier, probably a dollar store thing, although I could make up a story about Grandpa making these in the old days! He certainly could have, he was a mechanical engineer for trains, and had plenty of woodworking tools. 

Xmas house soldier, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Here are some tree ornaments with contrasting textures... on the front left the bulb is a metallic-green finish, on the right is a matte green finish, and the star in the background is knitted with yarn. I used several layers on the left bulb using shades of yellow-green, while the right one was done with wet-in-wet technique and darker blue-greens.

Grey and green ornaments, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Finally a few more of the wooden toy ornaments, the left is a colourful train with a bear sitting on top, the right is a Santa on a sailboat, with sunglasses that I added to the painting! 

Wood toy ornaments, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  

Blue sky Sunday, neighborhood scenes

Since the train was going by, I stopped my bike at the old clothing factory that is now a restaurant and condo complex. The structures are seen around the edges of the painting, with the bright sun, blue sky and prominent tree featured as the center of interest. I had to do another painting while this one dried, so that the tree could be painted over top of the sky. 

Sun tree industrial condos, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

In fact, I did several paintings on this location in st Henri, since the sun was beaming down and I had full light to paint with, which is a rarity these days. Much of Montreal is hidden beneath shadows from tall buildings, but this clearing provides good sight lines and open sky. The train was crossing Courcelle street creating a line-up of cars and a few bikes. 

Cars waiting train crossing, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

This painting shows an electric charging station and the sound-wall that runs parallel with the train tracks in the background. Enormous piles of snow were piled up here, and a tree leaned out over the pastel sky. 

Electric charging station, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

It didn't take long for the graffiti people to cover this wall in 'artwork'. As usual, I replaced the actual graffiti names with my own crew, including PJD, D-DAWG, CILS, JD CD, DYER, and FITZ. Being backlit, the shadow from the wall had a prominent blue-violet tint that I made with indo blue (PB60) and magenta (PR122) and a touch of blue saphhire (PB15). 

Train wall graff, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Why do I bother painting on location when that painting of the tomato wearing sunglasses will probably end up being the most popular painting? At any rate, this burned out condo in st Henri had some interesting contrasts, with plenty of snow piled on top. I am not familiar with the story on this particular fire, a quick google search shows a number of major fires have happened in the neighborhood in recent times. Half of the roof had caved in and windows looked pretty scorched. 

Burned out house, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press,December 2025  

Still life: tomato transparencies

Here is a cool tomato, wearing my favorite shades. Today's still life theme was transparency, using a tomato with various forms of transparent materials. The lenses of the shades are a charcoal grey which created darker tints on the tomato skin, and dulled the intensity of surface reflections. The lenses reflected overhead lights. A reflection along the bottom of the tomato ended up looking like a smile. 

Tomato shades, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Here is the tomato as seen through a zip lock bag, the bag is being held up by a framing rack but I omitted it from the painting so the bag seems to be standing up by itself. To show the transparency effect, I placed my 2 inch hog's hair brush partly behind the plastic so it goes from being sharp and high contrast to blurry and low contrast behind the plastic. The plastic was wrinkled and crinkled which created a layer of light and shadow, while blurring the overall form of the tomato. 

Tomato seen through zip lock bag, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Finally the most challenging of all, is the tomato as seen though a beer mug. Its one of those glass beer mugs with the oval depressions, this one has a Concordia University logo badge on the front. The University really wants us to help with student recruitment, so what better way to say 'Bachelor's Degree' than a beer mug reflecting a tomato? In fact, the glass bent light sufficiently so as to create a large image of the tomato on the concave, with smaller versions of the same tomato on the convex oval sections. Red and green light intermixed on the front and side angles, creating a neat holiday colour scheme. 

Tomato seen though beer mug, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  

Still life: bathroom scenes, colour splashes

Now its time for a journey into the inner sanctum, the bathroom of all places. Everyone has one, or maybe more and spends a lot of time there, so why not make a few paintings? Here is our towel rack with an old faded blue hand towel, and part of the counter top and mirror visible. At the top there is a light switch on the left and the bottom part of 'Great Wave' a print by Hokusai. This painting tested many of my still life skills such as shiny things, fabric, and reflections. 

Towel rack, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

This porcelain cat is hollowed out in the back making way for the toilette brush. It sits dutifully all the time, keeping the implement handy for when its needed. In the background corner, there is a new water detection unit that can shut off our main water valve if flooding is detected. There are little detector pucks around the condo now, to protect against water damage. 

Porcelain cat, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

If you made it this far into today's blog, then what were you expecting? Here is a painting of incense burning on top of the toilette. In the upper left is an aqua-painting we obtained in Ottawa, the artist made it by putting paint on top of a bin of water, then placing the paper on top, and skillfully pulling it off, leaving interesting patterns and an image of a red tulip. A black lighter is visible on the counter. Catching the gloomy amber lighting was key, I used a head lamp (white diode light) to judge the colours correctly. 

Incense, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

No, this is not a painting of what was in the toilette, although it could be... this is what was on the backs of these paintings, well, front. In 2005 I did a series of colour-splash paintings, where the paint is applied in great big puddles then allowed to dry over the course of days, then repeated a few times. When cut up into smaller sections, the results are sometimes fantastic like this one. 

Colour splash 1, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, 2005 

Here is another image of the back of the painting, it was part of a large piece. In elementary school I did a project where I created fabric dyes from household ingredients like beet root or turmeric for example. When complete, I dumped all the various materials from which I had extracted dyes into the toilette and flushed... that looked like the painting indeed. I am afraid to search the internet, but surely, toilette bowl art is a thing. 

Colour splash 2 ,watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, 2005  

Nice Autumn day, a little bit windy

It was a nice Autumn day, just a little bit windy and a tad bit of snow. Painting was a challenge, in this scene you see snow blowing across the basketball court down in Coffee park. I applied a moist wash to the area of the blowing snow, then painted details around it, using the trees and post as a device to create an illusion of floating clouds of snow. 

Basketball net blowing snow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Cars at Raffi's auto shop on Harley street were buried in piles of fresh snow and the strong wind was whipping it up even more. Quebec issued a travel advisory for cars, to basically stay home if possible, but the travel advisory did not say anything about riding bicycles today!

Raffi auto cars under snow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Riding east along the Maisonneuve bike path brought me to a group of trees that offered some respite from the blizzard-like conditions. On cue, the commuter train rolled by and I could paint its outline real quick, then integrate it with the foreground trees. To begin, I painted out a faint outline where the snow highlights had to be, then filled in the little bits of tree trunk and branches that were visible. So most of the snow is just paper showing through since there is no white paint in watercolour. 

Train through trees, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  

Still life, shiny things

Finding a few shiny things around the condo I made these paintings starting with our cheese grater. After examining the small holes with a magnifying glass, I came up with a strategy and kept with the plan. The dark holes were not evenly round, they had been made with some sort of mechanical hole punch. Light was catching their jagged protruding edges, creating small local shadows. The aluminum background was mirror-like, my blurry reflection, and my cup of tea could be seen. Mixing grey tones is best done with a purple mix (PB60 + PV19) and some yellow ochre (PY43) or raw sienna (PBr7) dabbed in. 

Cheese grater, watercolour 4 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Looking like a metallic owl from Clash of the Titans, an old 1980's sci-fi movie, this is our electric kettle, with one of my water bottles in the background. My face and hand, with paintbrush, were reflecting on the right side of the container. Using a full set of values wisely, from darkest dark to lightest light, it key to creating this illusion of a shiny object. There are wide ranging hues to depict, some cool purples, others warm caramel tones. I had two light sources on the subject matter for all the still life paintings.  

Electric kettle, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Finally the big challenge, our disco pumpkin... its a pumpkin candle with a mosaic of tiny mirrors fixed on with grouting. The mirrors were much smaller and fit tighter than you see in the painting, but you get the idea. Colours ranged from cream to dark green, purple, and variations of grey. The stem was made of glass. 

Disco pumpkin, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  

Still life, fabric theme

Continuing with still life studies, here are some paintings of various types of fabric from around the condo. The first one is an afghan blanket made by my late Nana using crochet, its brown with yellow and cyan patterns. Since yarn uses similar types of dyes, I could match the colours using pigments such as burnt umber (PBr7), orange-yellow (PY110) and cyan (PBr7). Painting fabric feels inherently chaotic due to all the undulations and textures, but the final results seem to be rather peaceful. In the background, I showed a stack of recent paintings, with the intense sunset over Lachine canal on top of the pile. 

Crochet afghan brown yellow cyan, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Here is a tea towel folded up, it is cream-coloured with magenta detailing stitched in to the material. It looks to be machine made, although the magenta parts may have been hand stitched or done with a sewing machine. Being mass produced, it had tight texturing and clean lines. To do this, I painted out an outline of the undulations, applied the body washes including shadows, then over-painted the magenta and cream fabric textures. In the background is a kitchen table chair and some water containers I use for location painting. 

Tea towel cream magenta, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Trying a different type of fabric, here is my neon vest with reflecting strips running down the back. In reality, it is spattered with mud, but I liked the clean aesthetic of this painting, it looks like the day Cilei gave it to me as a gift, new and clean. If you try to paint things like this at home, it may feel like a huge technical challenge. Its been some time since I did fiddly studio paintings, but with all the location painting lately, I felt like my brush work improved tremendously and I had no trouble identifying hues and values. It was fun to try and figure out ways to depict various types of fabrics, perhaps I will do more in the future, although, I have a different idea for my next set of still life paintings, wont spoil the surprise. 

Reflecting vest neon grey, watercolour 4 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  

Intense sunset Lachine canal

It was intense in more ways than one... intense colours, intense brightness, intense wind, intense cold...intense painting! When I completed this on location, standing at the Atwater footbridge looking west, the entire painting was still moist and shimmering in the sunlight, like a mirror-glaze on a cake. I waited around an extra 5 or 10 minutes to make sure it would dry enough, and with the wooden drying rack, it dried just about right. Every now and then a painting comes together to be more than just a sum of its parts, there is something about the bright colours contrasted against the earthy brown and black of the old factory-turned-condo buildings, the rail bridge that crosses here, and the snowy, frozen canal shimmering in tri-coulour like Neapolitan ice cream. The windchill was so severe here I had to pull up the wool scarf to above my nose and tighten up the parka hood, just peering through a small crack, fighting off the tears and sniffles as my face got blasted with winter cheer. Glad I hung in there and could ride my bike home in one piece to tell the tale.  

Intense sunset Lachine canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Tunnel and bridges blue sky cold day

Here is a painting of the underground highway 136 entrance off Notre Dame corner of Peel, I painted a similar scene of the tunnel and building in the background on a vertical format last month. This time, the glass building was cropped to the left, with additional structures visible on the right along Notre Dame avenue. The train bridge is sandwiched in the middle, with the highway tunnel entrance at the bottom left of the scene. With giant puffy gauntlet gloves the size of oven mitts, it was a complex scene to pull off but I am much better painting detail on cold days. It was nice to see a blue sky for once!

Tunnel winter glare, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Along the Lachine canal, just before Peel basin, there is a view of the new, old, and oldest bridge structures, with Farine Five Roses sign and New Canadian Maltage factory looming in the background. Instead of 'SLUK' I put my initials on the Maltage building, in real life, there is an enormous graffiti up there. Getting the lettering correct on the Farine sign was quite a feat given the circumstances. In the winter, shadows have an interesting blue-violet shade that can be mixed with blue (PB60 or PB15 red shade) and a dab of magenta (PR122), and dilute accordingly. I did one more on the day, will post separately in a moment. 

Bridges canal winter, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Still life food items, fruit themed

The theme of these still life paintings was food items, in this case, bananas sitting on a Xmas paper plate. Yellow can vary from warm to cool, its done by adjusting the tint with a dab of orange (PY110 or PO62), or a dab of green (PG36). The corresponding shadows are made with a dab of brown (PBr7) or a dab of dark green (PBk31). The paper plate turned our really well here. 

Bananas xmas paper plate, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, December 2025 

Here are three fruits you may or may not recognize. The top left is called quince (from Turkiye), its a pear-like lumpy yellow fruit used for juice or other cooking applications. In the front, the orange thing that looks like a tomato is actually a persimmon (known as a kaki), it is very sweet and tastes like a mix of apple and banana flavours. On the right is an avocado. I included one of the porcelain plates with a plant print, and some of my location painting supplies in the top right. 

Three fruits, watercolour  6.5 x 10" cold press, December 2025 

Finally, this scene is looking down into our morning ground coffee tin, with the scoop upside-down. The tin itself has a fruit themed design on it, a still life painting. I did the coffee with three steps, first, brown colour washes, varying from orange brown to purplish brown, then applying a lot of dots, both dark and light, and finally, a thin wash of clear water to blur it slightly. The inside of the tin was reflecting different colours, ranging from neutral olive, grey and some yellowish tints.  

Coffee grinds tin, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4947b)

Snow piles Rona parking lot, McD

In the winter, snow is piled high around the Rona parking lot making for some compelling scenery. Here, you see parts of a car parked behind a snow mound, with trees in the middle ground and the Rona facade in the background. A number of different techniques were used to paint the snow pile including wet-in-wet and drybrush textures. Colours vary from pastel blue, violet, beige, grey and yellow. The car was tricky because it had to look like a car with minimal information. 

Snow pile Rona parking lot, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4938b)

While the first painting dried, I turned and did this painting of the McDonald's with a bus stop and snow piles in the foreground. Naturally, I replaced McDonald's with my initials and the year, and put a smiley face on the bus stop advertisement. When the first painting was finally dry, I painted the tree details and initialed it. Watercolour paint dries slowly on a cold, overcast day, and using salt water, so I usually try to do two at a time. Last year I painted 5 x 7" all winter, but this year I did away with that format and its all on 6 x 7.5". 

McD bus stop snow piles, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4948b)

Still life, tech theme, fish tank, speaker, mouse

Painting the fish tank is always fun, this one shows a side view with the tank on a wooden stand that my Dad and I built several decades ago. Its still standing strong, holding up the tank no problem. The giant algae eater is sitting on the bottom, camouflaged, and a few guppies still swim around looking for food. Getting the interior light effect and exterior glow was a matter of controlling the grey tints and varying colour temperatures from cool blue to warm orange. 

Fish tank with stand side view, watercolour 6.5 x 10" cold press, December 2025

The right speaker is so much more interesting than the left speaker, it has a volume control knob, headphone jack, and a green light-emitting diode. To paint the diode I first applied a green circle with open interior. As I filled in the black surface of the speaker, I painted over the green circle to give the impression of green light reflecting off a black surface. Finally, I daubed in some high chroma green (PG36 + PY184) leaving a thin rim of white. Its the same technique I used on the night neon scene of Dépanneur NDG. 

Right speaker green diode, watercolour 4 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  (No. 4949)

Its been awhile since I sat down and did still life scenes. When in a sitting position with paper lying flat on a table, your perspective is highly skewed... its something I have to remember since I usually paint standing up when on location. You can see in this painting the top right of the scene seems to pull away... that's the perspective effect. Next time I have to hold up the paper when establishing the outline. On the front edge of the mouse, you can see a reflected scene of our living room and my silhouette. I replaced the brand name of the mouse with my initials (its a Logitech of course, as are the speakers). 

Mouse my reflection, watercolour 4 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4950) 

Pink house pastel sky, crack in ice

Down in st Henri there are good views of the old Maltage factory with its iconic pink house on top. Its so iconic, that tourist brochures now feature it in their promotional materials. I caught a moment when the sun was going down, it created a pastel sky of cool blue, salmon tints, and lemony yellows. The rest of the scene was black, brown and grey post-industrial scenery, with the tops of some buildings in the foreground. 

Pink house pastel sky, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4947a)

 

As the water in the Lachine canal continues to freeze solid, there are still large cracks and thin patches of ice showing through. In this scene, a crack had let water up which changed the colour and transparency of the ice. The setting sun casted a yellowish glow from right to left, with cool violet shadows throughout. In the background are old industrial buildings where the st Armanad paper company used to be, and the iconic teal and rust-coloured water-tower. I've painted here before, its basically the first view you get when arriving at the Lachine canal from st Henri. I tuned up my bike today and it ran smoother than ever, had to add a special low viscosity oil on the chain for winter. 

Crack in canal ice, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4948a)

Thought I wouldn't paint outside today?

So, you thought I wouldn't paint outside today? It was just -24℃ with the windchill, practically shorts and T shirt weather here in Canada. Just kidding, you have to take this kind of weather seriously because exposed skin can get quickly damaged from frost bite. Actually, I had no choice since the LUFA Farms pickup is on Thursday so I got all dressed up in the winter gear and biked down to Trenholme park. The skating rink has its walls up, but no ice yet. As I painted, a city worker came by and stomped on the ground to see if it was frozen yet, I suppose they are going to flood it with water soon. By chance, it was a full moon this evening, with a clear dark sky in the background. The main light source was an enormous flood light directly overhead. 

To paint this scene, I wore deer-skin gauntlet mitts the whole time, with thin insulating gloves underneath and wool wrist gators to lock in the warmth. At this temperature, you just can't expose hands to the weather. Starting with yellows and oranges, including the pale tea-colour of the moon (raw sienna PBr7), I slowly worked up the rink details, careful to leave snow highlights clear, then filled in darker elements including the background houses and sky. I wasn't sure the trees would turn out, I had to apply them while the painting was still slightly moist, using yellow ochre (PY43) and carbon black (PBk6) to make the branches. 

Full moon over rink, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4944b)

With 200 grams of salt per liter of water it stayed mostly liquid, although on the palette, the colour mixtures were quickly turning into slush, and the paint was freezing onto the paper. It created neat textural effects, almost like pastels or crayons. Over time, the plastic palette, which was bought new this summer, will crack into pieces because they don't make them for winter conditions. I'm not sure any watercolour painter paints in the winter. To illustrate just how cold it was tonight, we got fresh ground beef in the order today, and by the time I got home it was frozen nearly solid! 

Gas station chilly evening, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4942b)

Metro station, cafe and Peel basin cold evening

The st Laurent metro station was one of the locations in my 68 Stations of the Montreal metro series. Today, it had a thin layer of snow covering, with a construction pylon unceremoniously placed on the roof. There are a lot of overlapping layers in this painting which creates a sense of depth and three dimensional space. I got the garbage and recycling bins in the foreground, with some apartments and squirrel nests in the tree up in the background.

Pylon metro snow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4943b)

In the Quartier des Spectacles area there is a popular coffee shop with a glass enclosure in the back facing onto rue Jeanne-Mance. Cold wind was blasting up from the south west making it difficult to stand and paint, but I have good gear and an optimized kit. The latest adjustment was to add coloured tape onto the ends of each brush to make it easier to identify and pick up the correct brush while wearing oven-mitt sized gauntlet gloves. 

Coffee house cold day, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  (No. 4945b)

The water was nearly completely frozen down at the Peel basin, you see the last little pools of open water starting to close in. Orange lamps were casting a warm glow on the otherwise cold scene. In the background, a commuter train rumbled over the distant bridge. Using heavily salted water in these conditions and the paint will not dry very fast, or at all, so I had to sign my initials on the only semi-dry part of the painting off to the right middle. You also have to paint darker than you think because the delayed drying causes paint to soak into the paper more than usual which dulls the value and de-saturates hues. Winter watercolour painting is a true skill that at least one person in the world is starting to master!

Peel basin freezing night, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4946a)

Flurries downtown campus

At the downtown Concordia campus there were snow flurries as you can see from this view just outside the library. In the background is Mount Royal seen through the city, shrouded in snow fall. Looking up Mackay street, there were a lot of cars parked and driving south, its a one way street. Snow was coming down onto the painting which created some neat effects. Note: I just checked the updated catalogue and this appears to be the 1000^th painting of the year!

Mount Royal view through city, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4946a)

Painting the garbage can first, it ended up looking a lot bigger than in real life. Common sense is to paint the sidewalk and skyline first, then fill in the details so as to maintain good proportions on the objects. But it just felt fun to paint the garbage can, one of my favorite motifs, first, then frame the rest of the painting around it. Despite the steady snow flurries, I got enough detail into the scene, and saw the after effects of snow falling on the painting. 

Big bin corner snow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4940b)

Moon over condos, lamp and xmas trees

Despite the creeping cold weather I pushed on into the downtown core and found some more scenes to paint. I could not have timed this better had I tried... the glowing moon was hanging just over the Habs condo. Habs are the nickname for the Montreal Canadiens... they owned land around the hockey arena and built several massive condos over the past decade. To paint the moon effect I used raw sienna (PBr7) and indo blue (PB60) and a touch of yellow ochre (PY43). Towards the corners I applied concentrated purple (PB60 + PO73) and then diluted it towards the horizon line while tinting more towards violet. To make this sky effect, I had to control the hue, value and moisture levels all while wearing the oven mitts!

Moon over habs condos, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4944a)

The Atwater market parking lot is full of xmas trees waiting for a home. Strong flood lights illuminate the area, and a big red-orange dumpster decorated the foreground. In the background, there are rows of giant glass condo buildings and office skyscrapers. There is a lot of detail in a small painting like this, once has to hang in there when the temperature drops. Not too many painters were out there last night, just one by my count! 

Lamp xmas trees dumpster, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4945a)