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