Mailbox, University of Western Ontario, London Ontario

London Ontario has plenty of interesting landscapes to paint...I just had some trouble finding them! But no matter where I was, something caught my eye. In this case it was the back side of a mailbox, with the University of Western Ontario entrance structure in the background. I was actually sitting within the campus looking outwards towards Richmond Street (seen cutting across the scene behind the entrance structure). The mailbox was a simple geometric shape with interesting variations on red-orange. I like the foliage details, there is a lot of variety in the different greens. Compare the rich emeralds of the manicured campus lawn to the rugged yellow-green of the wild growth in the background. The shadow of a tree is suggested on the right middle.

I was not big on putting dates on the paintings back then, so I can only assume this was done in the early 00's just before I left for Montreal. I can sort of tell based on the ambition and skill level it took to accomplish this, but it also has a rough finish to it, so that puts it around that date. 

5x7 " Cold press, 2001-2003 ?

St. Mary's, Ontario, Train Bridge

Near London Ontario, there are several small towns such as Strathroy, Stratford, and St. Mary's. In St. Mary's there is a prominent train bridge that goes over the river valley towards the north. It is held up by massive stone pillars cut from that pale-rose stone that you can see throughout this town and others that are near the stone quarry. I was down in the valley and the sun was going down when I did this painting, it was probably the last one I did in St. Mary's. There are several others I did on the trip depicting houses bridges and rural scenes in the town. I accidentally left my thumb print in the sky in the upper left of the picture!

Cold press, 5 x 7" Watercolour, (some time between 2001 - 2003?)

Lachine Canal

Going west along the bike path from the bridge that connects Ville St. Pierre to Upper Lachine (Pont Lafleur) there is a small train bridge, maybe its the one connected to Station Du Canal? I am just looking at google map now to find out the street names. I chose this angle to show off the brick work under the bridge, the interesting perspective, and the cool light and shadows on the water. Trying to capture the spirit of Van Gogh, I overlaid lively brushwork giving each section a unique feel, and made good use of yellow and green. This kind of viewpoint was made popular by Monet with his painting "The Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil" which was done at a time that railways were spreading all over Europe, and the cost of train tickets was more accessible to the middle class making it possible for artists to visit the country side. That is a big reason Van Gogh was able to make his formative trip to Arles. I did another Monet-inspired train bridge once, years ago, on my train trip to St. Mary's, I will make a blog of that one too.

This painting is very small, it would be considered a sketch by most standards. Watercolour paintings are inherently smaller than oil paintings, the maximum size of watercolour paper is only 22 x 30" compared to standard canvas size which is more like 36 x 48" and commonly even bigger. I bought a new block (where the sheets are loosely fastened together), it was made by Fabriano- the product was Artistico extra white rough press, 140lbs. It cost a lot as I recall, but so far I am satisfied with the quality and performance. The rough surface was perfect for this rugged train bridge!

5 x 7 " (12.5 x 18 cm) rough press, watercolour, October 2019

Current Demand (updated picture)

Now that the weather improved I got a better photos of Current Demand, and several other of the large works. The original post had a low quality photo from my cell phone camera with practically no light.

We show the paintings in a poster frame, rotating them from time to time, it provides a different decoration, and also gives me and our guests a chance to look at the paintings. This one was interesting because it has a contemporary theme, that is, the relation between people and energy. On a recent trip to Shawinigan this theme was very prominent- power dam construction, electricity, and aluminum. I would like to redesign and paint a new version of this one, maybe it can be the next one after I finish "Four Elvis's Climbing a Mountain" which is on the painting frame at the moment.

On the back of the painting frame I mark down the name of the painting and the year, this one was done early in 2010, before The Extruders and The 2010 Solution. Stylistically this is a lot like The Fish Catchers 2008. I used the doodleism technique here, where individual doodles are combined into a larger work.

22 x 30" cold press, Watercolour. 2010

Lachine Canal, Lasalle, Montreal

Zest for colour in the fall, the trees turn and the geese fly south. This is the Lachine canal, looking to the East towards Verdun. I was on my way to Verdun when I stopped to make this painting in Lasalle just off St. Patrick Street. I was sitting right on the top of the wall of the canal here, my foot was dangling over the side! You can see the construction on the other side, they are rebuild the walls of the canal and eventually will open it up again for bikes. As I did this painting they were cutting trees down near the canal which seemed rather bad timing for me since the subject that inspired me most were the golden yellow trees.

Outlines are often used by the artist to establish the drawing and composition before doing the painting. In watercolour this is problematic because using a dark outline (like pencil) will show through in the final work. But is this bad? Van Gogh used paint to make outlines from what I can tell from studying his work, and he lets the outline show through in the final work. He probably picked this up from examining Japanese art. He was a big collector of Japanese prints, and even made copies. The Japanese artists used strong outlines to create energy in the work and define shapes. I almost always start with a light outline using paint, here I began with the top of the tree line on the upper left, then established the curving line of the canal, and the angle on the right embankment. I left the outline showing through in the tree line, and even accented it with some final strokes of red because I thought that line was strong and important to highlight the subject matter of interest. This painting is also a great example of a reflection on a wavy surface of water. I worked on that technique a lot last year in Amsterdam where there were plenty of canals.

Fall colour reflections, 5 x 7 " cold press, Watercolour, October 2019

Verdun, Montreal, Dog Park

Verdun is known to be green and brown (in french: Vert et Brun, which kind of sounds like Verdun in English). That of course refers to the distinctive brown brick buildings and plenty of green trees around the neighborhood. Verdun is actually where my Dad grew up back when grandpa was working at the Glen train yards which used to be a big train interchange and repair facility. Now the old industrial land is park land, which includes sports fields, trails, a new beach, and a sizable dog park. I was sitting amid the dog park here, luckily dogs tend to ignore people ... there is important business like sniffing butt and chasing each other around, and the dogs like to do that too! The sun was rapidly going down for this painting, I had about 15 minutes to get it done. You can see the long shadows from the objects stretching all the way to the background. You might wonder now, why is their a giant construction pylon (Montreal Orange) in the middle of a dog park? I wondered the same thing, but there it is. It didn't stop the dogs though, you can see one tearing about on the left of the scene below the bench.

Landscape painters all face the same challenge when doing work on location, that is, the weather and the sun.  You start the painting, and by the time you get an hour into it the sun changes, the cloud changes, and the whole scene looks different due to the lighting. It can even rain, then you have to abandon the project. Claude Monet used to have many canvasses for the same location, one for each type of weather (full sun, overcast, sunset etc), and then he would bring the appropriate canvas to the scene that day. There was another painting I forget who, (was it Corot?) who would install a wood pole in the ground so he could set up his easel in the exact same spot when the conditions were right. Van Gogh painted fast, and he filled in a lot of the canvas in his studio from memory and imagination. Somehow the artist needs to have access to the subject matter long enough to capture all the detail. You could take a high resolution colour photo (not possible in the old days), but in my experience that approach tends to suck the life out of the finished product. I paint small postcard-sized paintings on location and it only takes 30-45 minutes usually to complete it, so the changing conditions are not too much of an issue. In this example, there was not enough time for the paint to dry, so I added some details at home later, including the dog, the outline of the bench, some of the pylon and pole details, and the leafs and trunks definitions. The black dog was a homage to Van Gogh who liked to put random black characters in his paintings. The dog looks a little like a L.S. Lowry detail, even though I didn't know that artist when I did this painting. I found out about Lowry from a Netflix documentary on how to detect forgeries.

5 x 7" Cold press, watercolour, October 2019

Salamanca, Spain

Keeping up with the Spain paintings, here is another one from the '98 collection done in Salamanca, Spain. This city is best known for its cathedral, and its very romantic vibe. Now that I am posting this painting, I guess it should also be known for its ducks! Painting ducks or birds is always tricky because they don't really sit still long enough to capture the drawings. I usually try to make a quick outline to get the shape, and then fill in the colours the best I can. If the animal leaves completely it is tough. Here it looks like they were mostly sitting down near a fountain. Painting fountains is really hard so maybe I wanted to paint the ducks instead- as I recall I was quite tired of painting fountains and statues towards the end of the trip (this was in the final two weeks of the 2 month Spain trip), and so focused more on other interesting things.

When there is a shadow next to a brightly coloured object, the shadow will pick up reflections and take on a glowing effect. The underside of a duck is normally a cool purple/beige tone, but with the intense sun reflecting off the grass the shadows took on a yellow-green tone. I quite deliberately create this effect by putting the purple/beige shadow first. While it is still wet, I dropped in some of the yellow/green from the grass. If you get the amount right and judge the wetness, they will blend together and give the reflection effect. In Spain it was hot and dry and the paint dried fast, so these wet-in-wet techniques had to be done fast. Faster than a duck can waddle!

5 x 7 " cold press, watercolour, 1998