Sunday Painting Trip Parc Jean Drapeau

 

On Ile St. Helen is a large park and concert area that used to be used for music and large crowds. They recently renovated the area to be more crowd friendly including stone walkways and an off-white gravely surface. I just enjoyed standing in the middle of it, having that much space around is a rare commodity. Behind the trees, Jacques Cartier bridge could be seen. I used yellow ochre (PY43) in most of the mixes, it was a paint I didn't like at first, but now I know how to use it in delicate washes and tints. At full strength it looks just like dijon mustard.

Concert Space Parc Jean-Drapeau, 8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2619a)

 

On the south side of the island is a small channel of the St. Lawrence called chenal le moin, which translates roughly into the smallest channel. The water takes on an emerald green and all sorts of turquoise tints. A large tree was hanging over the embankment, it had an orange dot meaning that it would be cut down soon. I felt that this tree had stood there watching over the river for perhaps a hundred years, but now its time had come to an end. That's why I composed the tree prominently on the left, and contrasted the direction of the tree bark with the direction of the river flow, which both have a similar texture. To finish I overlaid the branches, twigs, and spring buds. The chartreuse and greens of the buds made nice contrast against the emerald and turquoise of the river. I wanted to paint this scene last year but either the light wasn't right or it was too cold, but today the conditions were perfect for a moment. 

Chenal le Moin, Parc Jean-Drapeau, 8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2619b)

 

The island has several built in ponds including the so-named swan lake which only had ducks and geese in it today. The weather turned cold and overcast making it a difficult finish. You can see 'islands bridge' in the background, it connects Point St. Charles to Ile-St. Helen and holds the bike path I used to get here. I would like to come back to this scene in the future, the willow tree and reeds were a real challenge. Maybe there will even be swans next time.

Swan Lake, Parc Jean-Drapeau 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2620a)

 

On the way back the sun came out again and I found a spot away from the path looking across the train tracks to some new condos they built in Ville St. Henri. The condos are built with red iron oxide bricks, umber bricks, and some fire engine red paneling. In the foreground I noticed little yellow flowers growing in the rocky embankment next to the tracks. In addition to the bright colours, I included several shades of grey, not 50 but quite a few. The clouds have 'Homer's grey' a mix of prussian blue (PB27) and venetian red (PR101), the gravel has grey ochre (PBk11), and the tracks and other accents have neutral tint (PBk6, PG7, PV19). I had abandoned neutral tint for awhile but found myself just having to make it every time, so it was easier to use this one from the convenience mix.

Tracks and Condos, Ville St. Henri 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2620b)

You may notice paper sizes vary on my blog, the most common landscape size I use is 5 x 7" in fact I have over 1000 paintings on that format. To scale things up I have started to use 8 x 10" which is over double the surface area (35 versus 80 square inches). The 4 x 6" format is only 24 square inches, but it is a standard size. Standard size means American framing standards which are different from European or Asian. Here are the standards, 

Standard frame, picture, mat opening:

5 x 7", 4 x 6", 3.5 x 5.5"

11 x 14", 8 x 10", 7.5 x 9.5"

16 x 20", 11 x 14",  10.5 x 13.5"

20 x 24", 16 x 20", 15.5 x 19.5" 

30 x 40", 22 x 32", 21.5 x 31.5"

For example, if I paint on a paper that is 8 x 10" then I have to leave a half inch border so it fits in a standard mat and frame that you can buy at the store. Any other sizes have to be custom framed which is more expensive. 

Colour Infinity

 

It seems that I finally got through the paper that I over-soaked, it had turned into a potato chip both in shape and texture.  So I used the pieces to make a series of exploratory abstracts with plenty of colour. With spring here the scenes are mostly grey, green, brown and blue so it was refreshing to splash some colour on the paper.

Colour Infinity Swirl Away 5.5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2621a)

 

Purple and yellow are contrasted at the top of the web, but transform into the other around the web. In the background I used neutral tint a handy dark purple point from Winsor and Newton that contains PV19, PG7 and PBk6. The purple is PV23, magenta PV19, and the yellows are benzimida and various others.

Colour Infinity Web Crawler, 5.5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2622a)

Saturday Bike Ride and a Few Paintings

 

Once again my plan was Park Jean Drapeau, but by the time I arrived at the canal path it was teeming with people not wearing masks. I turned right instead and found a spot well away from the bike path, secure with my fresh medical mask, and made this painting of the canal and dry reeds. In the background is an old industrial park that is being gentrified, there is a hipster craft brew restaurant underneath that rusty water tower. I painted the scene closer up, sitting on the other side of the canal last year. The water was umber plus indo blue, and the reflections the same mix but leaning to umber and darker. The reeds were similar, with raw sienna and burnt sienna.

Lachine Canal with Reeds 5 x 8" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2623a)

 

Instead of forging ahead, I turned back into Ville St. Henri and found a secluded parking lot up by the highways. To my surprise there was a pile of snow remaining, covered in a sooty mess of gravel and sand. Trees in the middle ground were sprouting leaf buds, and a brick wall had been spray painted with my initials and 21 graffiti. Well, I made up the graffiti part it actually said something else but I copied the silver and black design. For the snow pile I wet the area and applied gray ochre with a dab of indo blue, then overlaid with more grey ochre and venetian red. I liked the soft crumbly appearance against the sharp background elements. Lets hope this is the last snow for awhile.

Last Snow Pile, 5 x 8" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2624a)

Testing One Two Three Four

 

While prepping my palette for tomorrows hopeful painting trip, I found some tubes of paint that inspired this painting. Traditionally green, orange and purple are considered secondary colours, although this designation serves no useful purpose in art. What is the proof? Ask yourself if you would want wallpaper in your living room to look like this. The paints were dioxazine purple (PV23), phthalo turquoise (PB16), phthalo blue-green (PG7), and isoindo yellow (Py110) with a little benzi orange (PO62).

Secondary Thoughts 5.5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2622b)

This one used a similar colour scheme but more yellow and some white showing through. It was meant to resemble a kind of acoustic chamber, like the inside of a speaker, or ear drums. As I learn more about colour theory, it occurred to me that I do not see colour like other artists who write the books, I suppose that I rather hear the colour, or feel it perhaps.

Sounds of Colour 5.5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2621b)

I did this one a few days ago, partly to use up some of the ultramarine blue I had on the palette, you can see it in the snakey thing in the foreground. The name of the painting was simply a place holder I added while cataloguing, it seemed a ripe place for a painting. If it weren't called this, I would have called it colour infinity.

Not Painted Yet (Colour Infinity) 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2611b)

Dear diary, I also practiced a Brazil-themed painting this week, trying to work out the best paint combination to depict the Amazon river and rain forest from a birds eye view. Google map satellite view helped me get in the ballpark, then I did the smartest thing an artist could do in this situation, ask a Brazilian! Cilei agreed that goethite (PBr7 granulating) was the best choice for the river, and the mix of phthalo green yellow shade (PG36) with benzi orange deep (PO36), and yellow highlights (PY175) was best for the rain forest canopy. Her last name translates into people by the river, so what could be better than that? I will work on the actual painting soon, planning on using a larger piece of the St. Armand paper made in Montreal. So it will be a true Brazilian-Montreal fusion.

Brazilian Test 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2607b)

Ho Hum Bird and other abstracts

If you check out the bottom of my blog on Botswana, I posted the first version of the Botswana painting which was in my pile. I just finished catching up on the catalogue for this year's paintings and found a few other interesting ones like Ho Hum Bird. Like a humming bird, but bored!

Ho Hum Bird 3.5 x 5.5" cold press, watercolour, March 2021 (No. 2613b)

 

Last year I abandoned my favorite red paint alizarin crimson (PR83) because it fades in the sunlight. In this painting I recreated the memories of it using a variety of quinacridone and pyrol reds. I also threw in some ultramarine for old times sake, I have a pan of PB29 from Stoneground paint company.

Memories of Alizarin 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2591b)

 

With ultramarine blue it is easy to paint underwater scenes. The name was inspired by the name glory of the snow, the little blue flowers. I was actually trying to work out which type of blue would be best to paint the flowers next time I get a sunny day.

Glorious Blue  5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2592b)

 And for dessert...

Chocolate Sparkle 1.5 x 5" cold press, watercolour, March 2021 (No. 2610b)

Somerled Apartment Stormy Sky

 

This painting was in the pile, it was done the same day as the paintings on the chilly day long walk in March. I didn't like this painting at first but when I was updating the catalogue, the stormy sky really caught my attention and it brought back the memory of that day. In the foreground is the wood and metal awning of a fruit store, in the background is a giant apartment and telephone wires. There is an extreme amount of telephone and electrical wires around there creating a brutalisk appearance. The windows all have slightly different colours due to the stormy sky.

Somerled Apartment Stormy Sky 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, Macrh 2021 (No. 2566)

Benny Health Complex with Rocks

I have painted everything in this park several times now. Each tree from multiple angles, lighting, time of day, and season. And now the very rocks I sat on painting the parking lot across the street. Today the rocks had broken glass around them so I sat over on the retaining wall close to where I painted the path last December. The brick colours are a challenge to paint, there are at least 5 things to optimize. First the hue, that is the 'colour' which ranged from orange-yellow all the way to red. Second, the chroma, which is generally in the middle, that is, greyish. Third the value, which is middle value (lighter) in the sun and lower value (darker) in the shade. Fourth is the substance uncertainty, a phrase coined by Handprint.com (MacEvoy) that refers to the difficulties in mixing different paint together to achieve the correct hue, chroma and value. Fifth, the computer- somewhere between scanning and displaying on a monitor or screen the brick colours turn about 10 degrees to the red side. Lucky for me there are a lot of red brick houses to practice with!
 

Benny Health Complex with Rocks 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2579b)