Winnpeg City, shades of beige

I mentioned it before in the blogs, Winnipeg had a distinct beige/tan/brown colouration. In fact, I ran out of raw umber, a dark chocolatey brown, and raw sienna, a sandy colour, on one of my two palettes. Lucky I fully loaded two palettes for the trip and had enough to get through. This scene shows the Oxford Hotel, on the right, with another distinct mid 19th century building on the left, which stretched all the way down the block. I posted this on location earlier. It was the second day in Winnipeg for me, and I was pleased to see a big blue sky and mostly clear sunny weather for the rest of the trip. 

Oxford Hotel, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026

This scene had an impressive range of beige, ranging from a light cream off-white, to a tea-with-milk and caramel tones. It was a challenge to mix this colours, I used variations of raw sienna (PBr7), green umber (PBr7), burnt yellow ochre (PR102) and orange tints (PO62). 

Beige buildings, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026

For some reason, this painting took me longer than usual, there were a lot of interlocking parts and perspectives to try and capture. I will just post the rest of the Winnipeg paintings in this blog, although I made a few cuts with paintings that did not quite work out the way I hoped. All in all it was a a surprisingly fruitful painting trip, surrounded by an Immunology Conference, or the other way around maybe! 

Brown buildings, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026

Another tricky painting to pull off, this is a small hot dog and hamburger stand on Main street near the train station. It had a closed porch area, and small serving counter inside. A lot of people came and went to the shop as I painted. Cars rumbled by on the right. 

VJ's Drive In, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026

This building seemed to be abandoned, but maybe it was apartments. On the facade, it said 'The Winnipeg' printed in stone, so it must be mid 19th century, or early 20th century. Perhaps it was once a hotel, given its proximity to the train station, just a few blocks to the south. The lower part of the facade had a colourful pink mural with a fish. 

The Winnipeg, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026

Here is a close-up of the side of the Nutty Club candy factory, there is a panorama I posted earlier. In this version, I made the bricks look like little pink and yellow candies! The windows are also coloured differently to give the impression of candy. In real life, it was all cream-colour and shades of grey. 

Nutty Club close-up, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026

Portage is the main commercial drag of Winnipeg, the hockey arena, and many shops and restaurants are up and down the strip. Looking at it from this angle, there was a lot of traffic. Most people drove cars in Winnipeg, just a few pedestrians like me here and there. 

Portage Street traffic, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026

 

A group of people with Iranian flags gathered here on the weekend as I painted the scene of the Oxford Hotel. So I did a quick scene of one of the flags in the foreground, with an ornate building in the background. 

Iranian Flag, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

Another overpass sky-walk, with a Tim Horton's in the lower right, although I changed it to PJD 26. I didn't paint people much on this trip, preferring to stick with landscapes and cars, with the occasional goose. There are some silhouettes up in the sky-walk here, behind green-tinted glass. That's it for the Winnipeg blogs for now, I might write one up on my thoughts on the colour palette of Winnipeg which was rather interesting. 

Overpass and Tim Horton's, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026