Stacks, wood palettes and a flower in parking lot

In the parking lot of the hardware store at the end of Harley street, I found some shade at lunch break to do a painting of these pink sacks of earth stacked on a blue palette. The rest of the scene was hazy and gloomy due to the residual smoke from fires. The pink colour was done with combinations of dark magenta (PV55) and light magenta (PR122), with some dilute red-orange (PO73) on the top where the sun was reflecting. It was tricky to get the shapes and patterns of the sacks to look organized on the palette. 

Pink sacks stacked, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

These wood palettes are stacked up next to the fence which still has the turquoise posts from when it was a reno depot. The two large apartment building on the horizon are on Sherbrooke street and Cavendish corner. Just to the left, unseen, is the community garden. 

Wood palettes and fence, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

This scene reminded me a little bit of the painting I did of Somalia for the World Inspired Landscape Series which featured a flower growing on a sun-baked layer of dirt. Here, the flower was growing over from the community garden into the area with the rusted gate and asphalt parking lot which leads to the hardware store delivery area in the rear. I did the rust effect with a series of earth pigments ranging from yellow ochre (PY43), then burnt sienna (PR101) with pyrol orange (PO73), then finishing with burnt umber and some carbon black (PBk6). 

Maroon flowers rusted gate, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025