Composing the sky

Going down Glen hill, I was thinking about composing the sky. It seems like a background element, and most of the time it is, but its shape and consistency  plays an important role in any landscape scene. Here, the sky occupies about half the painting, giving a sense of scale to the highway overpass and steep hillside. 

Highway hillside, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

Similar spot, looking up at Glen hill, and the sky is only added to complete the overall effect. In this case the triangular wedge of the road is central to the composition. The road was done with a pale orange wash, then once dry, a purplish grey finishing wash. I let the washes dry completely before packing the painting into my bike bag to avoid smudging. 

Looking up Glen hill, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

At the bottom of the hill looking under the highway, that's Courcelle street, I saw some graffiti illuminated by a shaft of light. This was a very technical painting to do, and I was careful to use clean water and an unused paintbrush to apply the central magenta colour-fill on the graffiti. And the sky, you see a small wedge of it towards the upper right, its just there to give a sense of atmosphere. 

Light shaft graffiti watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

Finally for my exploration of sky compositions, this one has a triangular wedge of sky, adorned with a flock of pigeons flying away. Below, a bunch of electrical pole devices are sitting in an area, this is some kind of city works building. 

Pigeons over city works, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

And one last scene of a dépanneur in Hochelaga, it has a red and green 7UP sign which is a rarity, normally its a coke or sometimes Pepsi. Like many such shops, its fully integrated with a residential building. A local was walking down the sidewalk, scraping stickers off of posts... I think he was a good citizen removing graffiti to keep the streets looking nice. In fact, a lot of graffiti looked to be removed and buffed over, so Hochelage is putting effort into keeping the neighborhood looking nice. 

Dépanneur Clair Hochelage, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026