Pine Trees with Sidewalk

 

Along Monkland avenue there is a row of pine trees in the Benny park corner with Cavendish. Today I found a spot to stand under the trees and made a naturalistic painting of the pine trees, shadows, and needles on the ground. The only sign of of the city is a sidewalk angling off in the background. I used a drybrush technique to make the pine needle textures, its done by just pushing the semi-moist brush directly down on the paper so it splays out a bit. That technique is bad for the brushes but my current brushes are pretty beat up now. Some of my brushes are almost 20 years old, although the Holbeins I bought in 2020, and the synthetic squirrel (not real animal hair) are from last year. Probably time for some new ones! The initials were done in red to provide some contrast against all the green. The Japanese print makers used that trick, they would make their signature symbols all different colours and even integrate the signature with the composition.

Pine Trees with Sidewalk, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3466b)

48 Wires São Paulo, Brazil

Here is another memories of Brazil painting done from painting notes I took on the trip. The view from Cilei's parent's house included a nice view of the eucalyptus trees on the horizon that I painted at night. What I omitted from the location painting was a utility pole plastered with no less than 48 wires. The wires were mostly in neat arrangements and somehow delivering power and communication to the neighborhood. All over São Paulo the utility poles were like this. Wires would fan out laterally to various houses and shops. To make the painting, I did the background first, then painted over the 48 wires making sure to vary their thickness and count them. It was surprisingly challenging to paint 48 curving lines without too much overlap.

48 Wires São Paulo, Brazil watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, June 2023 (No. 3655b)

Flowers in Field on Campus

What is left of a large field of grass on campus has been left to seed. Maybe its a good thing because a variety of plants and wild flowers starting growing as you can see in the painting. I embellished a little, in fact, most of the field was a toasty yellow from the dry burnt grass. At some point it will be a parking lot or new building, so here is a reminder of how it was in June of 2023.

Flowers in Field on Campus, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3467b)

 

Here is the first painting I did of the scene, perhaps looking a bit more realistic. As I painted, it seemed unfortunate that the wild flowers were not in the picture, which prompted the second painting (seen above). Painting after work is always risky because I am wearing my cleanest clothes, today a bone white t shirt and white dress shirt. Luckily no paint was spilled in the making of this painting! I will have to bring a painting shirt next time.

 Field on Campus Parking Block, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3468b)

Ride Around Verdun, Warm Breezy Day

The bike route to Verdun from NDG is a winding one. It tarts with the new autoroute overpass bike path, to the Lachine Canal, across a foot bridge and up Senkus street, through Park Angrignon, across the aqueduct onto Crawford street, then follow the waterfront path to the east. This painting was done from the river shore park, somewhere near Douglas hospital. The south shore is visible in the distance, and a little island, probably Rock island is hiding behind the foliage.

River view from Verdun vertical, watercolour 10 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3614a)

 

This painting was from the same vantage point but composed differently to emphasize the end of what must be goat island, which is adjacent to Heron island, not seen in the painting. My Grandfather had a summer house, or shack, there in the 50's or so, where my dad and his brothers and parents would go to fish and boat. You can see how different this painting is from the same spot, just be removing the foreground trees and composing on the horizontal. 

Goat Island view from Verdun horizontal, watercolour 10 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3614b)

 

It took a little riding but I found 5th avenue where my Dad used to live as a child. This scene is looking directly across the street at a pink flowering shrub in full sunlight. It took awhile to complete all the intricate brush work of the shrub, along with all the background details. There were a lot of people around, many seemed curious and glanced at my painting. It's not often I paint on residential streets, sometimes people think I am a parking police writing a ticket. Which is silly because nowadays they print tickets.

Flowering Shrub on 5th Avenue, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3471b)

 

After visiting Cilene and Fritz, I stopped at Labelle park looking down Lasalle Boulevard. Here I made a quick painting of the famous brown buildings, green trees, and crooked utility poles of Verdun. In French they call Verdun verte et brun!

View down Lasalle Boulevard, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3472b)

Scenes from Old Port Montreal

Its not the first time I've painted it, amazingly, there is a beach in Old Port Montreal! Nobody was using it today, just a narrow strip of sand and blue awnings next to the marina on st Lawrence river. I deliberately write lower case st by the way, instead of upper case dot, there are a lot of Catholic saints names in Quebec and its not fair in my opinion that so many things are named after them when we have a diverse community and the issue surrounding religion in Quebec with indigenous people. But I digress from the main fun of today which was painting in decent weather without the brutal snow and ice I faced last winter. The boats were all motor boats so I painted them like cars, and mostly in black and white. Cartier bridge is briefly shown in the top of the painting.
 

Beach Blue Umbrellas and boats, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3470)

Not far from the last scene, here I am looking across the river at ile st Helene with the expo 67 dome, and an old turret they restored recently. Of all my attempts at the st Lawrence in this area, I think this one does the best at interpreting the flow and patterns of the river. It has some rapids here, and you can really feel the energy of the water flowing. I tried to use the water motif almost like an abstract, a palette cleanser painting of sorts.

st Lawrence and Dome, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3471a)

The colours and textures grabbed my attention here, and the seagulls on the shallow water made for a nice contrast. As I painted, several people stopped and watched me paint, one fellow even took a picture of the painting and then took a picture of me doing the painting. In French he said how much precision was in the painting. Its funny because I painted this one with a deliberately loose and gritty style. I've been meaning to advertise my Instagram (PJDART42) on location especially when downtown. But if you read the blog, there is nothing new on the instagram, I just post the image of the painting there with a few words.

Bridge and gulls, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3472a)

Machine Unlearn

Lately there has been a lot of talk of artificial intelligence, which is just a rebranding of a computer procedure called machine learning. Machine learning goes back to the mid twentieth century when computers were starting to be used to control various devices. The military was using computers to calculate intercepts for missiles, and had developed some early machine learning procedures. Nowadays, similar procedures are used on a massive scale to sift through data on the internet and come up with blended text or images. It is not really intelligent because it can only regurgitate variations on things that already exist, in academia we call the plagiarism. Perhaps one day machine learning can be creative and really think on its own. The painting represents machine learning in a way, although I called it machine unlearning. We need to unlearn what the machines told us to do!
 

Machine Unlearn, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, June 2023 (No. 3656b)

Shrubs near Train Crossing

 

Down by the train tracks there is a small park called Coffee Park, great name, its just a strip of land with some play park, benches, trees, and a small basketball court. I've painted Coffee park and this train crossing many times before. Today I combined some of the flowering shrubs at the corner of the park with the train crossing elements and of course, the garbage pail in the foreground that practically counts as my signature. Each element is embellished with its own colour scheme and brush technique. The style of this painting is somewhere between Dutch impressionist painter Van Gogh and Canadian folk painter Maud Lewis. Maud Lewis's paintings have been in the news lately due to their high value, she sold them for mere dollars decades ago and now they are worth tens of thousands each. They are also easy to forge and that has dampened the market a little. I wonder if people will ever forge my paintings... it may be a little harder with watercolour paints! Not to mention, just about every painting I made is catalogued and most of them on this blog. Back in the old days records were scant, which make opportunities for the fakers.

Shrubs near Train Crossing, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3469)