Tree and cone, Early work and Recent work

Cones have popped up from time to time in my paintings. There is something exciting about a flash of neon orange in the midst of an otherwise drab scene. For example the recent factory painting, along avenue Parc, hidden among the trees, or even at the dog park! In this painting done on the Loyola Campus the pylon cone helps to break up the otherwise symmetrical composition. I chose the scene because of the convenience of a picnic table where I could sit far away from the walkway. A person from work walked by and said hi, from a distance of course. I was also intent on perfecting the tree-bark colour and textures. It seems quite realistic here, a mix of iron oxide red and phthalo blue with various tints of blue and violet, and bloodstone detailing. 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2020

As I rummage through my extensive collection of old paintings I used to remember each one, but now its a little hazy. The following painting I do remember, naturally the pylon caught my attention. It was done in London Ontario on a bike ride in the country side. The tree-bark colour is really fantastic, the sun is setting, and it is illuminated in a rusty red glow.
 I am unsure of the exact date on it but the prolific use of cerulean blue in the mixes, and the cerulean blue signature probably puts it around 2002-2004? 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour,

McDonalds, Early work and Recent work!

Recently I have been doing a lot of landscape painting, more than ever before in such a short period of time. It is mostly due to the cabin fever and lack of activity that we have to endure for the pandemic lock down. The good news is our neighborhood seems to be leveling off and we should be able to do normal things again. Meanwhile I will make the most of the lack of traffic and crystal clear atmosphere. One place that was busy was McDonalds. The drive through had a constant stream of cars, which I omitted from this scene done this week. I kept in the ever-present sea gull on the hunt for fries!
This is also the first painting on the new cold press watercolour paper pad I have done, it is on a spiral notebook format and you tear away the sheet at the perforation line.  5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, 2020

The golden arches have appeared before in a painting I did in London Ontario many years ago. I dug up the painting recently and made a scan. It is remarkably similar! Here it is from 18 years ago in London Ontario...I am impressed with the level of detail on the lamp post. There seems to be a cemetery in the middle too.

5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, 2002

Creemore Ontario

Here are two paintings I made on an afternoon driving-painting trip around Ontario. I headed up to Creemore Ontario where the famous brewery is located and found a few scenes including a signature garbage can and a beer truck parked at the brewery. I was so pleased at how the reflections turned out on the side of the truck, with the Creemore logo suggested on the side and back. 

5 x 7 " cold press watercolour, summer 1996

Beer Time! London Ontario

Left out in the parking lot, these are four large beer-brewing vessels waiting to be installed in the Labatt Brewery in London Ontario. There were actually eight of them but I had to edit a little to fit the giant 3 story tall kegs on a small piece of paper! I looked for this painting in the box of London paintings because I recently completed a painting of some compressed gas cylinders on Norman street Montreal and it reminded me of this. In comparison, the colour and texture in this early work is incredible, although I can see the shape of the kegs is a little off. I remember doing this painting, I read about the kegs being delivered in the newspaper and rode my bike all the way down there (I lived in the north part of London) to capture the scene. It was one of the toughest scenes I had taken up up to that point, other than the cathedrals in Spain. Here is another one I did on the same day of the back side of the Brewery....

Now this blog just reminded me of the beer truck I painted in Creemore in the 90's, I will dig that one up soon enough and make a blog.

5 x 7" cold press, watercolour (2000- 2003?)

The Factory, Lachine Canal, Montreal

Trees have appeared in most of my paintings recently, but in this scene there were none to be found. It is still important for my vision of these works to include nature, to show the interaction between nature and humanity, so I put in the tiny sliver of grass on the bottom left. The factory was something I have wanted to paint for years now but several things were holding me back including heavy traffic on the street, noise and dust from the actual factory, and a slight lack of skill to take on such a subject. This year because of the pandemic lockdown there is practically no traffic on the street here, and the factory is shut down. My skill set improved this year after some intense drawing practice and a reboot of my paint palette.

The orange pylon is one of my signature landscape elements, along with garbage cans and sidewalks! I started this painting with a black outline (bloodstone genuine), then the first thing I did was the orange cone with pyrrole vermillion hue (PR255 Schmincke) a new colour I am using, got it from Avenue Arts, it was mixed with some vanadium yellow. The other thing that worked nearly perfectly was the colour of the green metal warehouse which was a mix of iron oxide red (PR101/PBr7 mix) and  phthalo blue (PB15). The colours you see in the painting of the warehouse, brick middle portion, and duct work are just as I saw them. The big pipe on top was a caramel/greenish look, I will have to work out a better mix for that.

I hope to return to this location on the weekend, this scene is just a corner of the factory. 

7 x 10" rough press, block. May 2020

Bolton Ontario

I regularly get at least 4 views for each blog, and I have feeling I know who a few of them are! So here are a few paintings I did in Bolton Ontario awhile ago, likely in the late 1990's or early 2000's. Unfortunately I did not put dates on too many paintings except for in the summer of 1996 when I first started painting on location. I seem to remember these were done on some of my frequent trips back to Bolton to visit Mom and dad from London Ontario. The first one shows downtown Bolton, looking up towards the North Hill. The street here is King Street. When I checked on google map, there was a new building on the left beside the red house. 

Downtown Bolton

 

The other painting was done in a small park on the North Hill, called Humberview park across from the high school. It is near our first house in Bolton, where I grew up. 

Humberview Park Bolton

And finally, a winter scene from behind Humberview Highschool, looking towards James Bolton Public. I went to both of those schools in the 80's and 90's

View of James Bolton elementary

5 x 7" cold press, 1997-2003?

Nowhere, Montreal

Keeping up with the painting and the blogging, here is today's work (both the painting and the blog!). I can't promise to be posting and blogging so much, but in the midst of the pandemic we have little else to do. Today was a brilliant 17C near perfect day, which means half of Montreal was out and about. Knowing this, I rode my bike into the middle of nowhere, literally. On the map this location is a no-man's land on Norman Street between Lachine, NDG, and ville St. Pierre. At least I can't be accused of traveling to another borough! Still though, two bikes, 10 cars, and a guy on an electric skateboard went past me.

I did a painting like this years ago, it was showing giant beer brewing vessels that had just been dropped off at the local brewery for installation. In this painting, the cylinders are actually flammable gas containers supported by steel beams painted blue. The whole section of Norman street had hundreds of these, and I finally stopped at a little driveway where I could set up the chair and paint. I liked the tall tree in the background, and the shrubs and grass in front. The scene was surprisingly light and colourful considering it was a dusty and dingy industrial park. I have never been able to make it so far on this road, the pandemic has minimized all traffic, there used to be a dearth of trucks, cars, smog, and noise on this road, and I suppose there will be again soon enough.

This was the first painting from the Winsor and Newton 20 page block, from Avenue d'Art that I picked up before the stores closed. It has a mild texture closer to cold press, and I kind of liked it so far.

7 x 10 " rough press , May 2020