Palette Cleanser 33

 Bugles in the sky? After my weekend painting trip the palette was pretty dirty, lots of grey green and brown was used. I brought raw sienna (a toasty beige) and umber (mud) paint on my palette last weekend, they are very useful colours for landscapes. I also had the Schmincke quinacridone violet (PV55) it is a truly great paint for making silvery/grey shadows. In this painting I used colours just about pure, with the caveat that they were all a little dirty from the painting trip. Having some 'mud' in the mixes actually serves a purpose, when a colour is straight from the tube it can appear very bright and artificial. With a touch of grey added, the colour is more subdued and useful. In the past I kept my palette very dirty which helped subdue the colours. However, in retrospect my old paintings did tend to be less colourful than this years batch. You live you learn! 

Palette Cleanser 33, 9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour, September 2020

Amsterdam Trip City Views, The Netherlands

Recently I went to Amsterdam with Cilei for a conference and vacation, this was before the pandemic issues and conferences were popular. Now that I think about it, conferences probably used to spread viruses as much as ever, but there was no COVID-19 to draw our attention. Maybe we will all be safer against other viruses like the flu. The painting shows Hotel Casa on the right where we stayed, it is located in the south west part of the city but like everywhere in Amsterdam it is well connected by tramway, metro and bike paths. The colour of the hotel was tough to mix; I found the colour by trial and error. In retrospect, it is a desturated low value turquoise, but at the time I wouldn't have known that. Hotel Casa 5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour, August 2018

 

Going into the touristy areas was a challenge, there are throngs of tourists everywhere crowding the sidewalks and shops. I did not include them in this painting in order to focus on the shops and architecture. This was a typical set of buildings with a souvenir shop on ground level, and crooked windows on the top floors. The X shape in the windows is a sort of Amstersdam flag, a triple X logo.

Tourist Shop, 5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour, August 2018

This building is some kind of museum or theater called the Eye, it is visible across a very large canal from the back of the famous Centraal station. The iron girder beam is holding up a huge covering that keeps pedestrians covered when it rains (which it dos a lot there). I caught the tiniest portion of a bike tire in the bottom left of the scene. 

View of the Eye, 5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour, August 2018

 I did a few other paintings that I wont show on the blog, including a garden near the conference center, the conference building, and another scene of Centraal station. 

Amsterdam Trip, Water Views, The Netherlands

 

In Amsterdam the canal system runs throughout the entire city so you are never far from water. This scene is actually along the bank of the Amstel river where many house boats, more like floating cottages, are situated. The roof of the closest floating house was covered in grass and flowers, and a bird landing there as I painted. This one was done later in the trip so I had a better sense of how to paint the water. I used a layer of pale purple and overlaid greens purples and browns in short brushstrokes.

 Amstel River Floating Houses, 5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour, August 2018

 

 

This scene was of one of the many canals that feeds into the Amstel river. The apartment building was white plaster but covered in a thin layer of moss giving it a green glow. The rest of the scene was in purples and yellows. The water was done using a similar style to the others, with an under-painting and short colourful brushstrokes to create the illusion of ripples and reflections.

5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour, August 2018

 

 

This looks like a pond but it is the terminus of one of the canals, a great square shaped artificial lake of sorts right next to the conference center (RAI). There were ducks swimming about, which I tried to capture with an over painting technique. Perhaps inspired by Van Gogh, I used a wide variety of brushstrokes here to create different textures in each element. It kind of looks like an oil painting. 

5.5 x 7.5" hot press, watercolour, August 2018

Preparations for Amsterdam trip (2018!)

Before heading out to Amsterdam for the conference (and our short vacation) I went around town practicing a few landscapes in town. It had been a while since I made location paintings and I wanted to test out my setup and get a bit of practice in. If you haven't painted in awhile it takes a few days to get in the groove again, so my hope was to arrive on site already 'in the groove'. These buildings are on Somerled Av. near our apartment, the one on the left is a Jean Coutu pharmacy. The building look like they are falling over, which was not intentional, ironically many of the buildings in Amsterdam also looked like they were falling over as they are all built in sand using deep piles. 

Apartment and pharmacy on Somerled Avenue, 5 x 7" hot press, watercolour, August 2018

 

Luckily enough, there were a few flower planters with sunflowers, what better way to prepare for a painting trip. This one was near the end of its growth and the flowers were twisted, browned and falling off. I tried to channel my inner Van Gogh for this one! Introducing the background apartment was extremely difficult, the window details are hard enough, when inserted between flowers and leaves it was even harder, and the cool humid weather made the paint run a bit. None the less it does the job of portraying an urban flower garden.  

Urban Sunflowers Last Blooms on Somerled Avenue, 5 x 7" hot press, watercolour, August 2018

 

This was another urban flower planter with giant sunflowers. This year (2020) they didn't plant anything because of the pandemic lock-down, but I noticed that sunflowers were growing in and around the planters anyways! In the background barely visible is the Metro grocery store, the paint was really running around with the humidity and failing sunlight. I posted this one before. 

 Urban Sunflowers on Somerled Avenue, 5 x 7" hot press, watercolour, August 2018

Saturday Painting Trip: Parc Jean-Drapeau and Verdun

 

Going for a bike today was a real pleasure- brand new bike with all the gears and brakes working perfectly, and a bright sunny, albeit chilly, September day. I made it out to Saint Helen's Island which contains Jean-Drapeau Park where they used to hold summer music concerts. There was a small live music show there today, I could here the sounds echoing from somewhere. They made numerous renovations to the area, interlocking paving stones, wood benches, and flower gardens now surround the entire metro station. Jean-Drapeau metro is part of the yellow line, which begins at Berri-Uquam, stops on the island (seen in this painting), and terminates at Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke station on the south shore. I couldn't resist putting the handlebars of my new bike in the painting. The grip, components, and headset are all jet black. The metal mesh dome with flag in the background is from Expo 67 the inaugural event held on this human-made island wonder. 

8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, September, 2020

 In Verdun I found an interesting set of buildings that looks a lot like an old military barracks, I saw similar architecture at a London Ontario barracks. The use of these buldings is shrouded in mystery, no sign, no hints, but on Google map it is listed as a City waterworks, which makes sense considering it is right next to the aqueduct.Getting the brick colour correct was key to this painting (and keeping the lines straight!). I used a complex mix of raw sienna, benzimida orange, and small amounts of black paint, then diluted. It came out looking exactly like what I saw! This year I have learned how to recognize three properties of colour namely hue, chroma, and value. With this knowledge I am also learning how to replicate those properties with paint, all thanks to Handprint.com (MacEvoy). 

Verdun 10, 6.5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, September 2020

 

On the way back to home I rode along the bike path that runs through the north part of Verdun near the aqueduct. This building caught my eye and I slammed on the brakes. Once the sun came out from over a cloud, I set up my gear and started making the outline. Sure enough, a giant fire truck showed up and parked in front of the building blocking the view for about 10 minutes. At first I thought this building was lonely but then I realized it was a very social building, it had trucks visiting it, and a painter painting it! The red, blue, yellow elements were really there, they play well against all the other greys. I intentionally painted the back-lit clouds this way for maximum intensity. It is on Bannantyne Avenue and Dupuis street.

Verdun 11, 6.5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, September 2020

I was surprised to find yet another blue-topped Verdun borough sign, this one near Jolicoeur Bridge. They had a flower/garden sign depicting cyclists and starbursts, the rest of the scene was framed in blue pine and deciduous trees. The sun was low, which cast an amber glow on the scene. This makes 4 paintings of borough signs, will I find anymore of them? 

Verdun 12, 6.5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, September 2020

Australia, World Inspired Landscape

 World traveling was definitely off the itinerary for most of 2020 due to the lock-down situation, so I developed an idea to explore the world through books and internet. Actually, this series began before the lock-down, I was keen on doing landscape paintings of Japan and used google earth to explore locations there virtually. Due to copyright rules on Google I decided not to use source material directly, instead I brought together a variety of sources and came up with a highly original design based on visual and thematic ideas. In this scene, Australia is depicted almost like wallpaper, with repetitive elements. There are 9 green trees, 9 burnt trees, 9 piles of rocks, 3 swamps, 3 snakes, 27 tufts of grass, 1 road, 1 kangaroo, and 1 crocodile hiding. What stuck me about Australia was the huge variety of landscape, the design tries to capture many such elements from the interior. I decided not to show beaches or reefs because many other countries are defined by those features and I plan to do one such painting for each country. Australia was the last painting I needed to complete countries with the letter A (use blog page or labels to see the others). Next up, countries that start with the letter B, do you know what the first one will be? 

Australia, World Inspired Landscape, 12 x 12" cold press, watercolour, September 2020

1989: The Beginner Painter

Big hair bands, booming economy, wallpaper, things that were in, in the 80's. My mom signed me up for a watercolour course after having done some drawing lessons back in 85. Sonya Vernot was the teacher, she got us started by bringing in a vase of flowers, and after that, some other still life items like baskets and fruit. Flower painting would occupy most of my output until 1993 when I started paintings landscapes from photos. This painting was likely done from my imagination, I seemed content to invent as many flowers as I could! Two Yellow Daisies, 9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour 1989 (No. 0050)

 

 

Here is another one, even more inventive than the last. This is a really far-out flower, with a beaker-like vase. Starting around 1991 I would rely more on source material like flower books and calendars of flower paintings, but at this time it was from imagination. These were done outside of the course. I recently gave names and code numbers to all the old paintings for my catalogue. There were about 15 paintings from 1989, although I may have sold a few back in the day. Purple Space Flower, 9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour 1989 (No. 0092)

 

 

It was a sign of things to come, during the lessons with Vernot and the group I got bored with the flowers and started looking out the window. I saw the top of a tree, and did this imaginary scene based on the real life tree. In some ways this would be my first landscape painting. Sonya took some time to show me how to properly paint a sky and use wet and wet to make the skyline, there are a few of those practice paintings. Sepia Tree and Hills 9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour 1989 (No. 0093)

A few others I already blogged about can be seen in the links here, here, and here.