Heat Wave

Recent events inspired this painting, namely, a heat wave in Montreal! It is literally melting temperature here, you could fry an egg on the sidewalk and some bacon too. This painting was originally something else, and I scraped off the paint and turned it upside down, and then created the image. The last thing I did was the patterns in the orange blob in the sky which is meant to be a stylized fire cloud.

5 x 7 " hot watercolour, July 2018

Walkley Street, NDG, Montreal

Is this the first watercolour painting of Walkley street ever? Nobody knows, but it is the first one I have done! It was something I wanted to do for awhile but just couldn't find the right scene since Walkley street is basically a long row of condo style housing with a lot of trees. This scene caught my eye because of the flower bush and the large tree casting shadows over the building and the lawn.

Painting details like these flowers is very difficult in watercolour because you cannot put lighter paint on top of darker paint. This time I tried something different, I made the shape of the bush in red/pink first, keeping the top right of the bush lighter to suggest a highlight. Then I put the green on top to create the outline of the flowers. The results were good I think, the bush looks together and realistic. The rest of the painting was just there to fill in, I wanted the tree to have bright yellow. There is no sky shown in this painting but you still get the feel of a bright blue day.

5 x 7 " cold press watercolour, June 2018

Bakery in NDG, Montreal

A few doors down from where we live in NDG there is a little, old fashioned bakery and deli that sells pastries pasta lunch meat, sauces and that sort of thing. I tried shopping there once but it seemed to be more of a social club where the customer talks endlessly to the shopkeeper and tries a samples of everything before actually buying anything. The good news is that they give you free samples while you wait! The unique colour of the brick work and the contrasting bright colours of the sign and awning caught my attention for this painting. Across the street is the Royal Bank, but I put the current year on the sign instead!

Painting these kind of ivory colours in watercolour is very challenging like you see in the bricks. I accomplished the effect with a layer of warm yellow-orange to give it the brightness, then overlayed some neutral greenish-grey, very thin. When dry I looked at the actual bricks and adjusted the tone a bit using a third layer of very thin warm yellow in places to give is a shimmer. The brick detail is done in warm grey with a smaller brush. The effect is better observed in the original painting, but the scan version here does it justice.

5 x 7" cold press watercolour, June 2018

River in Ontario

Here is a recent painting I did in Ontario while I was out there at a Science Conference. There wasn't much time off so I just made one painting near the hotel I was staying at close to campus. Since I left there not much has changed, except there was a lot of construction going on, so much that I thought I was back in Montreal.

I tried to copy the old master style of painting these kind of scenes. To do this I kept the brush strokes thick and colourful, and used a composition reminiscent of Monet. The person on the embankment just sort of showed up for a moment, probably looking for cans and bottles. I made their shirt red just to give some contrast to the green.

5 x 7" June 2018, cold press watercolour

Mallorytown, Ontario

This view from the highway 401 was at a rest stop near Mallorytown during a brief stop there. I mean brief! I think this painting was completed in less the fifteen minutes. It helped that the conditions were ideal, sunny, dry air, and not wet or rainy for early May. The rock formations under the tree are classic Canadian shield rocks that can be seen along the highway all the way through Kingston. I tried to capture the cars too, just a few brush strokes on top of the rocks you have to look carefully to even see.

Painting objects on top of things in watercolour is very difficult because the medium is transparent. You can paint things that are darker on top, like the lamp post and the tree trunk and branches in this picture. But the lighter, white highlights have to be left blank from the beginning, like the clouds, the curb, the other sparkling details. For that reason it was impossible to really paint cars in front of the rocks. If I was using acrylic then no problem, let the first layer dry then put the next layer on top, any colour or tone. That is just one of the challenges with using watercolour.

5 x 7 " cold press, watercolour, May 2018

The Questioner

This painting was actually untitled when I finished it, then since it looked like a big walking question mark I decided to call it the questioner. It was done on a small cutting that I had leftover from some other piece of paper that I had cut to size. It was mostly done using layers of paint, a technique called glazing where the thin washes dry on top of each other. That gives the work an eerie glow. 

4 x12 "

Rain Surf

Rain or shine surf is up! This painting was inspired by a song by Marcos Pagu translated as "Returned Rain After Ten Years" a friend of our friend David who makes artistic projection projects in São Paulo.