Place des Arts Convocation

Last night was the Spring convocation for Concordia University, a large event where over 600 students, their families, and faculty gather to hand out degrees diplomas and certificates. It is held at Place des Arts main stage where musicians and comedians have performed, such as Robin Williams many years ago when my family went to see him perform. Lucky me, I got to sit on the stage wearing my black gown with purple sash, the colours of a Western PhD graduate, along with the other professors wearing their colourful outfits. Basically we clapped and stood occasionally for 3 hours... a professorial cheer leading section! Just before the event I made a quick, like ten minute quick, painting of the Place des Arts exterior scene. The Jazz Fest is held at this location too, although it was just being set up from what I could tell. I've painted this scene before from a different angle, so I had a good idea of how to go about the components.

Place des Arts Convocation, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3475a)

Colours After Klimpt

I read an article about a painting by Gustav Klimpt selling for a lot of money. He was an Austrian oil and watercolour painter who was active around the turn of the twentieth century, most famous for his use of gold leaf embellishments. His style was quite unusual, it was a mix of photo-realism with decorative abstractions. His most famous paintings were of figures of women embellished in gold leaf and bejeweled with plenty of colour highlights and textural effects. The subject matter is not for me personally, and the colour combinations seemed almost unreal. To better understand how it worked, I made an abstract painting to test some mixtures, then, working from memory I made the painting above. Getting the value contrasts on the yellow and caramel (gold) colours was difficult at first, and I was not able to fully replicate the sparkles in the background. The overall effect was not felt until the painting was about 90% complete. In the midst of painting the jewel embellishments in pale pastels, suddenly the golden highlights popped out. Like opening a pirate's treasure chest full of loot. I sort of wish I was more careful with the face portrait, but I like the noodly arms. Anyways, it was an interesting exercise to push my limits as a painter. And if anyone want to buy this painting I am charging 150,000,000 million monopoly dollars.

After Klimpt, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, June 2023 (No. 3637b)

Bike Ride (almost) to Ile st Helen

 

Nun's Island is connected to the south canal (st Lawrence Seaway) by an ice flow control bridge with a wide bike and pedestrian path. Through the trees I got a view of the bridge arching across to Brossard on the south shore. I omitted several supporting struts to give the bridge the appearance of floating off into the distance. To make the various greys I primarily use mixes of blue (PB60), red (PR175) and yellow (PY43) or greenish-brown (PBr7).

Champlain Bridge to Brossard, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3474b)

 

Looking along the banks of the Seaway path on the right, I could see what seems to be the Victoria bridge and the Jacques Cartier bridge behind it. The brown blob in the top left is the Molson Brewery, which is set to close up and move to the south shore soon.

View of Victoria and Cartier Bridges, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3473b)

This is one of the supports for the train bridge which merges with the Victoria bridge, which was casting a green shadow into the flowing water. The water has two layers, and I left little white spots to signify the bubbles floating by. To make the greenish shadow, more of a dark yellow, I mixed perylene green (PBk31) with indo yellow (PY110). It was painted on a sheet from a new 10 x 7" Fabriano block, the same make and brand as the 5 x 7 blocks I have been using for several years now. The bike path was blocked off here, so I had to turn back. It was due to the big car race. I could hear the cars buzzing loudly around the nearby track, good thing I brought earplugs. 

Reflection under the Train Bridge, watercolour 7 x 10" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3618)

On the way back, the last remaining piece of the old Champlain bridge caught my eye. It appears that they are preparing this area to be a pedestrian area, like they did under the new Champlain bridge. I hope they do keep it intact, it is a colossal structure and sure to be a tourist magnet. Orange pylons provide scale. I spent a lot of time adjusting the grey of the concrete to get the exact hue and value.

Old Champlain Bridge Monument? watercolour 8 x 10" rough press, June 2023 (No. 3620)

Soggy Day on Somerled

Across the street on Walkley there is a colourful mural that was reflecting in the puddles. I barely got into this painting when it started drizzling and I relocated to the covered staircase at our condo. Painting puddles is always an interesting challenge, we just have not seen too many of them with the recent dry weather. And the forecast is hot and dry for the next week. 

Mural Rainy Day, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3473a)

 

Standing on the top platform of our staircase which is protected from rain, I made a simple painting looking east on Somerled Avenue. The road was a shimmering metallic grey with subtle blue reflections from the rain. As usual, painting the cars is a challenge. Their scaling, perspective and relative position on the street have to be accurate or else they look too big, too small, or like they are tilting on another plane. In the painting they are sitting about right. To get the perspective lines, I hold my brush up vertically and rotate it until the angle matches the scene, then move the brush to the paper. This is a simple trick to transfer angles onto the paper without using drawing aides like a perspective frame, or using a photograph in the studio. If I tried to take a picture of this and paint off the smart phone, it wouldn't have seemed so bright. Your eyes adjust in low light conditions, making the contrast seem enhanced. Over the years I learned this and was better able to paint scenes on location when overcast. 

Soggy Day on Somerled, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3474a)

Lateral Design

Here is yet another palette cleanser, meant to clean my palette while creating a wild new abstract painting. I started doing this style in 2020 when I was experimenting with a lot of different paints and changing my palette around frequently. Orange was the biggest addition to my palette, I never had an orange paint and now I regularly use several. For example, isoindolone yellow (PY110) is a orange-yellow colour similar to that of a school bus or yellow lines on the road. Its very useful on location for mixing olive greens, toasty yellows, bright orange-yellow, and representing the setting sun. If I could reach back in time and give young PJD some paints, it would be isoindo yellow and perylene green (PBk31), not to mention perylene maroon (PR179) and lamp black (PBk6). And stop using alizarin crimson (PR83) it fades like crazy! Anyways, lessons were learned with time and careful study. In the painting I was experimenting with a lateral design where most of the elements are going side to side, like clouds in a psychedelic sky.

Lateral Design, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, June 2023 (No. 3656a)

Flowers with grains of salt

One of the first reference books I had was ambitiously titled 'Everything you need to know about waterolor". In fact, it only had a few things that you really needed to know about watercolour, along with a lot of oddball tricks you could use like applying saran-wrap to the painting while wet, making colour chickens, and throwing salt in the washes. In 2004 I was taking paintings to various art in the park shows in London Ontario and created a series of florals done in a light and airy style. To spice up the painting I threw salt grains into the semi-wet wash to create the appearance of small white flowers bursting from the vase. Judging the moisture is tricky, if the wash is too wet the salt just disappears, if the wash is too dry the salt wont dissolve at all. It works in a controlled studio setting, but not something I found to be very useful on location. Salt is better for preventing the water from freezing when painting in the winter.
 

Flowers with Grains of Salt, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2004

Memories of Painting in Paris part 3

After posting several Paris paintings, and most recently memories of painting in Paris part 1 and part 2, I thought I would complete the series with a part 3. As far as I can tell there are not many Paris paintings left in my box from the three separate trips I took over the years. In this painting, you can see the massive front of Notre Dame cathedral from an angle in the background, with a decorative lamp post in the foreground. When touring around Paris there was so much to see, it was almost overwhelming as an artist. I like some of the colour choices in the painting, like the reds and greens in the post, and the variety of grey, brown, and blues.
 

Lamp Post and Notre Dame Cathedral, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, 2009 (No. 1234)

 

 

I am never quite sure of the dates on these painting, in the last one I noticed no leaves on the trees, while this one is clearly in Spring or fall judging by the foliage. At any rate, the painting captures one of the many bridges in Paris with people gathered around its right and left banks. There was a lot of attention to detail in the bridge structure and perspective, with a nice light atmosphere surrounding it. The foregrounded tree branches on the top left provide a compositional element for depth perception.

People Under Bridge, 6 3/4 x 7.5", 2011 (No. 1239)

Just off the river there are many old buildings with fantastic architecture. Most roads in Paris are quite straight, but this was a rare curved road in the city. The building and iron fence were also curved around it, giving a sense of history and permanence to the location. I was into painting the traffic signs on the roads at the time, you see the arrow near the bottom of the painting. Since then, I generally ignore the road symbols. I like the golden weather vane on the top of the building, it looks realistic, and the orange leaves seem to provide a genuine glow. 

Fall Trees, Curved Road, 5 x 7" 2011 (No. 1243)