Autumn approaching

With Autumn fast approaching, just one official day of summer left, I saw the first real scene of a tree with falling leaves. For awhile now I've noticed the subtle shift in hue of tree leaves, from yellow-green towards olive and light orange. Here you see three variations, with yellowish-green, yellow-orange and green-yellow tint. To make autumn leaf colours, I mix low chroma with high chroma. For example yellow ochre (PY43) with benzi yellow (PY154), or burnt yellow ochre (PR102) with pyrol orange (PO73). Those mixes combine an earth paint with a bright synthetic paint, resulting in an interesting middle-chroma mix. If you go pure bright chroma, it looks fake, and pure earth, too dull. 

Autumn trees circle, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2026

 

A chaotic scene, even the seagulls were agitated, maybe waiting for French Fries at the nearby burger joint. This is the bizarre  7-way st Jacques interchange where you have major streets and parking lot exits going every-which way. An auto dealership is nestled into the background around the Falaise escarpment. 

 

Noisy gulls traffic, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2026

This scene had a desolate, almost apocalyptic feel to it. I've painted back-lit scenes for a long time now, it can be rewarding, but also frustrating if the first set of washes dries too light or dark. Starting with a reliable mix of burnt yellow ochre (PR102) and indo blue (PB60) with the correct amount of water generally works best, then over-painting with the details. I left some white space for an illuminated sign. The cars are simple blobs with just enough detail and colour to indicate their identity as cars. Since I got new reading glasses, I saw my paintings clearly for the first time in years and noticed some of them were getting sloppy... so I will try to sharpen them up a bit. I also noticed all the dirt and grime on my office desk and was appalled! Some things are better without the glasses I guess.  

Apocalyptic burgers, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2026