The snow finally arrived in large amounts, covering Montreal with a thick blanket. With temperatures slightly below 0 ℃ the snow accumulated all day leaving most things completely covered. In this scene, a fire hydrant, shrub, car and trees were barely visible under the piles of snow. Since the leaves had not completely fallen off yet, it made many tree branches bend and droop downwards.
First piles of snow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025
A large tree on Somerled accumulated snow on all its branches, with some yellowish leaves poking through. A traffic sign was plastered in snow making it impossible to read, while cars went by also covered in snow. Painting watercolour, or any colour, in these conditions is difficult to say the least but I have been doing it for years, or decades rather. I built a drying rack, its a balsa-wood frame, sized to the paper (6 x 7.5") that I place on top of the paper and use elastics to fasten it to a stiff piece of cardboard. This device will protect the surface of the painting from smudging when it goes back into the bag, and makes it easier to handle in rough conditions. I made a second drying rack this season so I can paint two at once. Its possible to reload it on location with fresh paper, but keep in mind, I am wearing oven-mitt style gloves for the entire process. I think today's paintings have the most amount of detail possible to do while wearing oven-mitts in the middle of a snow storm! They are not really oven mitts, they are dear-skin insulated gauntlets from Canada Outfitters, where I also got my wool base layer.
Snow covered tree Somerled, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025
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