Fresh fruit fresh fresh very fresh

With the chaos back home, power out and thirty below, luckily Cilene was checking and saved the big fish. Guppies and loaches may have made it too despite the cold temperature without heat for a few days. Cilei and I are staying in the warm part of Montreal, its called São Paulo, where the fruit is very fresh. There are several types of bananas here which I painted, they are on a decorative metal tray with the house cat in the background. 

Three types of bannas,  8 x 10" watercolour, January 2026

 

These lychees, or dragon fruit, were picked fresh with a deep maroon colour I made with perylene maroon (PR179), pyrol red (PR254), dark magenta (PV55) and some black (PBk6). The leaves are yellow orange (PY110) with a green tint (PG36). They tasted as good as they looked. 

Lychee on branch, 6 x 7.5" watercolour, January 2026

Of course, next up is a sliced mango. The locals take for granted that mangoes grow all over the place, in Canada we only get them shipped. Here they can pick fresh off the mango tree. Cilei has a mango tree on her land but it has not made fruit yet. I used A Van Gogh style for this one, and really played the cobalt blue wall against the juicy yellow-orange of the mango, with its tri-coloured skin. Cobalt blue was made with phthalo blue (PB15 red shade) and my favorite indo blue (PB60). This painting looks like you can eat it. ...and yes I did it was great.

Sliced mango, 6 x 7.5 watercolour, January 2026