Three quarter moon over campus

 

Somehow, this painting looks freezing cold even though there is no snow visible. If you can zoom in, there are ice crystal patterns that formed around the incredible moon-glow effect. I used a greater variety of colours in the sky than usual, starting with the warm-beige outline of the moon, then blending it into successive layers of violet, dark violet, blue and near black. The pigments used were indo blue (PB60), magenta purple (PV55), phthalo green (PG7) and pyrol orange (PO73). The moon halo was pyrol orange with some brown mix probably yellow ochre with red ochre (PY43, PR101). In some ways, the cold weather and salt water made painting the sky a bit easier because it was moist the whole time and I could make some really detailed colour shifts, along with the star details and moon glow. The building had a few lights on in the windows, those hard working administrators were at again late on Friday. When I saw this scene I knew it was amazing but I was exhausted, cold and hungry, then after getting just about half way off campus I turned around and went back to make the painting, and I am glad that I did make the extra effort because the moon effect is fantastic. At least, it looks just like when I was there. With the weekend finally here maybe I can make some blue sky paintings down at the canal hopefully.

Three quarter moon over campus, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2025

Clear day, snowy scenes on campus

The campus has a large statue depicting two indigenous people, one holding out some sort of cloth. I've painted it before on several occasions, although not in the winter. Since my bike was parked here, I just made a few paintings to take advantage of the blue sky and snow piles. Using a smaller brush (No. 6 size) and diluting the salt water about 30% helped get more detail and control the moisture of the paint. It was a long and difficult process to paint this one, which is especially felt in the cold weather.

Campus statue snow piles, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

To test out the diluted salt water, I tried this scene which is difficult to do in the winter. It involves making the under-painting, that is, the sky, building and snow shadows, then over-painting the trees. It held up pretty good, with just minor blurring here and there. The colours dried somewhat pale which is a function of the salt in the water. When drying is delayed, the paint soaks further into the rag-based paper which dulls the colours. I figure the water had about 200 grams of salt per liter, and there was just slight slushing on the palette. Speaking of the palette I accidentally dropped it and the second hinge broke off, leaving both hinges broken, and part of the corner broke off. These plastic palettes were not meant for a lot of winter painting.

Campus snow shadows, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2025

Night scenes winter, wating for LUFA

Waiting for the text from LUFA farms, the grocery delivery company, I made my way down to Harley street and made some paintings on the corner of Elmhurst looking east. This is one of dépanneur Harley with the mail box out front covered in snow. The sky continued to have the purple and orange hues easily recreated with indo blue (PB60) and pyrol orange (PO73) also known as Winsor red-orange. The rest of the painting was tough, with so much salt in the water it was moist and the colours looked faded upon drying. I applied a lot of digital contrast in the image above. 

Mailbox and dépanneur Harley, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

Here is the first one, too bad the washes all faded and the contrast was lost despite using some digital adjustments. The other day there was not enough salt and it turned to slush, this time it was perfectly liquid but dried too slow. Next time, I will dilute the salt water slightly. At least my clothing was good, I even felt warm despite the 20 below temperature. 

Commuter train City Fruiterie, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2025

 

Scenes around Cultural Center on a cold and snowy day

Making my way to the cultural center by foot, I found some relative shelter under the pine trees and painted a scene of the snow covered cars and the center in the background. The blue colour is known as periwinkle, a kind of powder blue, its like sky blue but darker and leaning more blue than cyan. I made the mix with phthalo blue sapphire (PB15), a touch of magenta (PR122) and a touch of carbon black (PBk6) and slightly diluted. On my palette, it was actually the consistency of slush because the water I was using had been diluted slightly for my last trip out. With today's temperatures I needed the full salt concentration to prevent freezing. 

Cultural Center blowing snow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2025

 

Finding some shelter under the large entrance way of the cultural center, I painted the cars on the road, along with the book drop off in the foreground. Snow continued to blow into the area even though it was completely covered overhead. Usually I try to simplify the winter paintings, but today's efforts pushed the boundaries a bit further. In this painting, the car and trees in the background started with a grey-blue wash, which had to dry before overlaying the car details. Then there was the complex light effect over the book drop off, it went from white to pale yellow to a medium cyan, then blue violet, while the metal square drop off bin was reflecting the light. Somehow I hacked out the painting with my single brush, oven mitts, and slushy palette.

Cultural Center book drop off, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

 

I found one last place to paint under the Provigo front entrance overhang on Sherbrooke near Cavendish. The scene is looking east along Sherbrooke. It was nearly dark and snow continued to bluster around in the strong wind. It was amazing how much traffic there was, I saw a bus go by and tried to capture it. Too bad the foreground was so wet, the silhouettes of the pedestrians would have been crisper, but you get the idea.

Sherbrooke traffic cold night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2025

Auto shop snowy night, from inside and outside

Late last night I made this painting of the auto shop across the street from the vantage point of our living room. It was an unusual experience for me to paint a scene like this from the comfort of home, usually I go on location but it was far too cold and windy. Not to mention, it takes some extra motivation to go from a warm home at night to get all the winter gear on and tromp outside in a 20 below blizzard. The painting shows the eerie lights and purplish sky, with the apartment buildings in the background. 

Auto shop snowy night inside, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

 

Next, I got all the winter gear and tromped outside in a 20 below blizzard to paint the scene for real. The first painting looked all right but I was curious to see the difference between painting from inside versus outside. For light, I had the head lamp around my neck, pointing down at the gear. Sure enough, the wind was howling and the snow was coming down on an angle. You can see where it froze and blended together when the snowflakes melted later on. The main differences were the colours, you see the greenish tinges here that were missing from the indoor version, and you feel more like you are standing in a blizzard.

Auto shop snowy night out side, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2025

Farine Five Roses, Peel Basin, Fox

In the background is the Canada Maltage factory which produces malt for beer brewing, better known as the Farine Five Roses building due to the iconic sign on it, which is off to the left of this scene. In the foreground is the edge of the Peel Basin with the black fence railings and some benches. A blue-violet shadow was casting from right to left as the sun was going down. I noticed an animal scurrying by, it was a good sized fox trotting by with its distinctive red-orange fur. It looked up at me briefly then trotted off along the snow-covered ice. I always thought that the paw prints in the canal were cats in the winter, but its more likely that foxes are the culprit. From memory I sketched in the fox in the foreground, I happened to leave a space there because of the shape of the bridge shadow. It was a bit of luck with the composition. That's a neat thing about painting on location, you never know what might make an appearance.

Peel basin fox, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

Snowy scenes along canal, tents and condos

Taking advantage of the light snow and (mostly) plowed bike paths, I made it down to Peel Basin for some painting. Approaching the basin, it occured to me that this is one of the best places in Canada to make paintings, it has it all, trees, water, old bricks and stones, condos,great sightlines, and plenty of spots to set up and paint. A couple of tents were set up among the trees in the foreground, with the canal and commuter train overpass in the middle ground, and the wall of condos in the background. There was an obvious contrast here in what were probably shelters for homeless people adjacent to the expensive Griffintown condos in the background. At first I was freezing, but felt quite warm as I painted, maybe the sun was providing a bit of heat before it went down for the day.  Its very peaceful in the winter, just the occasional train rumbling by in the distance.

Tents by canal winter, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, January 2025

 

The fresh snow on the canal shimmered with various pastel tints, and the reeds were a warm toasty yellow. Providing the contrast was the iconic black fence rails that line much of the canal. Painting the snow tints required careful brush strokes full of dilute pastel yellow, blue, and violet. The sky was done with impressionist brush strokes to avoid a large wet wash, and because it looks nice and wintery this way. I touched up the fencing, reeds, and my initials at home since it all dried a little flat which tends to happen when using salty water in the winter. There was a bitterly cold west wind, but I was facing east here, and the sun was on the perfect angle. Not many people out today, just a few intrepid joggers, cyclists and dog walkers.

Snow on canal green buoy, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

Freezing day on the Lachine Canal

At the bottom of what used to be Lake st Pierre several centuries ago, sits the Lachine canal. As you can see from the painting, it used to be an active industrial conduit bringing goods to a busy industrial area, and allowing safe passage around the st Lawrence river rapids. The structure is a gantry crane, which would have lifted crates and freight from boats to trains. The train tracks are still there, on the south side of the canal but they are not used anymore, nor is the crane. With 20 below Celsius windchill today, I used maximum salt and tried to paint facing away from the wind. Since the paint dries slow under these conditions I used an impressionist technique on the sky, capturing the various pastel colours. 

Gantry crane frozen canal, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

 

If you ever wondered where the snow goes after they remove it from the roads and sidewalks, the answer is, right next to the Lachine canal. Unfortunately the snow pile is chock full of garbage and pollution which is hard on the aquatic ecosystem when it melts in the spring. After painting the railing in front, I worked through the details using small brush strokes so that the forms could be created. Applying washes in winter is tricky since they dry so slow, making things blend together. A wash is a wet layer of coloured paint applied to the paper.

Snow pile across canal, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

Using a wash here in the sky, I created the effect of the sun trying to come out on this cold day. The wash did not quite dry, as I was saying, and you see where the billboard and highway and other details blurred. It can still lead to interesting effects. In this case, I was hoping the blurred effect would look like sunshine coming down. Facing the wind, this one was tough, and I wrapped it up and rode home. The bike paths just have light snow for now and are ride-able. Eventually these paths will be impassable by bike due to snow and ice.

Billboard canal overpass, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

 

Slated demolition on Cute st Luc studies

Up on Cote st Luc there is an old stop mall with apartments on the second floor that is slated for demolition. Only the laundry mat remains functional, all the other shops and apartments are abandoned. Something tells me there are some great paintings to be had here, but it is a very challenging location with just sidewalks, lots of noisy traffic and the structure itself is a long narrow building with a slight incline to the roof. Like Dépanneur Diamond 10, I am motivated to paint something before it is gone forever. Unfortunately the weather is not cooperating, rain yesterday and bitterly cold wind and swirling snow today. Of course, that didn't stop me from painting.

Demo turquoise and pink study, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

Here I tried to fit in the entire structure using a steep perspective looking east. The store fronts are yellow ochre, dark cyan turquoise, coral pink, then bone white. On top the brick is a pale white worn by the weather. The windows all seem to have a greenish tint. A pile of garbage bags was out front, and the alleyway had a no garbage sign.

Demo perspective east study, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

Its a hard scene with many interlocking shapes and colour variations. With the wind gusts I was lucky just to hold on to the paper! By bike almost blew over a few times. The trick with this location is to somehow capture the abandoned, derelict atmosphere while at the same time drawing reference to what the building once was. If the weather can cooperate, then I will return and do some close ups with more detail.

Demo site east corner study, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

Domino's Pizza and other rainy scenes in the new year

With steady rain there was a brief opportunity where it subsided enough to get out on my bike on the first day of the new year. I had seen this scene on a previous ride, it is a small rectangular building housing a Domino's Pizza chain. It was more about how the building sat in its environment that drew my eye, nestled between condos and surrounded by trees in the background. Light, misty rain came down as I painted. Most of it was done on location, although I had to touch it up at home to get the edges and finer details.

Domino's Pizza rain, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

This interesting looking building on the corner used to be a hair dressers, but now it is scheduled for demolition along with the entire block along Cote st Luc. The other shops are all closed down except for a laundry mat which is still open for business for awhile longer at least. The rain was picking up as you can see, and I had to sharpen up the details at home after it dried. I will go back to this location and paint the shops before the demolition.

Corner store demo rain, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025

It was steady rain by now, so I found a small overhang to get under and do this painting of an interesting blue shadow of a tree. The sidewalk was wet and reflecting the orange light from one of the street lamps behind it. Since the sky was still a little blue, the shadow also took on an eerie blue against the coral coloured sidewalk. The cars going by cast yellowish highlights onto the road. Painting this under any circumstances would have been challenging, the rain made it more so. At home, I painted the tree and a few other edges and details that were not possible on location due to spitting rain. Normally this would be snow coming down, but the weather is very warm lately. It should cool off considerably in the coming days though.

Blue tree shadow, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, January 2025