Snow drifter, painting in the snow

Here is a scene in Coffee park looking east at the basketball net and train tracks in the middle ground. The trees were added afterwards when the painting had a chance to dry more at home. Since I could not use my bike, more on that later, I plopped the bike bag on a snow drift which was about the right height to access the paint gear. Behind me, was the new park structure which offered a bit of protection from the elements, namely the howling wind and blowing snow.

Basketball anyone? watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2025

Here is the similar location but standing on the other side of the structure looking west, straight into the sun and wind. I captured the snowy atmosphere by taking advantage of the fact that the paint will dry in a pale grey tone if it is moist... you see in the background it is a perfect misty tone signifying blowing snow and creating the illusion of depth. Some impressionist style brush strokes in the sky and on the snow create more atmosphere and sparkle effects. The stars of the show are the trees, the buried park benches, and the neat shadows cascading along the deep snow, it was over 1.5 meters in places. Unfortunately, my bike has been forcibly removed from action... although I made it to work without too much trouble, the bike lock has frozen up and I could not unlock it from the rack next to my office despite trying for like ten minutes. So as I type, my bike is still there. Hopefully it warms up a bit and I get my bike back. It wouldn't have mattered much since the roads were too snowy to ride home, I could have got partly down Terrebonne but Walkley is mostly buried. The snow removal people can not keep up with the snow everywhere which is understandable, most cities would be completely paralyzed with this much snow but Montreal, and its (one?) winter watercolour painter, soldiers on.

Winter drifts, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, February 2025