Fall Rainy Day, Trenholme Park, NDG

 Finding scenes to paint when it is overcast and nearly raining is always risky, if you are out in the open the rain can come down and ruin the painting, or create little splatters that actually look like rain. For example, in the yellow tree at Loyola Campus, or maybe this Japanese painting? In the painting shown above I was sitting in the middle of some bleacher stands so nobody could get near me, looking to my right at the main building in this park. In the summer I scouted this spot and knew it would be good in the fall when the trees changed colours. The painting seemed dull when I was doing it, but I knew the dark tree branches would really make the colours pop. I had to wait as long as possible for the yellow-orange to dry before layering the branches on top. 

Fall Rainy Day, Trenholme Park, Yellow-Orange Trees, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, October 2020

To compose decent paintings on an overcast day it can help to find high contrast elements, in this case a set of goalposts painted white, with brightly coloured fall trees behind it. I couldn't help adding the squirrels in the foreground, it was so humid I could only use one brushstroke to do them. There were dozens of squirrels all over the park, some of them encroached on my spot out of curiosity but I didn't have any nuts for them. To make fall colours, I used a lot of umber, a mud-brown earth colour (PBr7) from Shinhan brand watercolour. It is one of the pleasant surprises I bought this year, it is good for a variety of things, including neutral fall colours. 

Fall Rainy Day, Trenholme Park, Goalposts, 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, October 2020

1997: Venice Beach and Santa Monica California, USA

 

In the late1990's I was obsessed with landscape painting on location, so called 'en plein air' painting and it occupied almost my entire output from 1996 until 2000. A friend of mine Ian suggested a trip to Venice Beach California to see the beaches and to see a TV show being taped live, it was the short-lived Tony Danza Show. I jumped at the chance to bring my paint set out to the west coast and found some time to paint the local scenery around Venice Beach and Santa Monica. I posted a blog previously showing a palm tree which was really new to me. This painting shows one of the many canals they built in the Venice Beach suburbs.

Venice Beach, Green Footbridge 5 x 7" watercolour, cold press, 1997 (No. 168)

 

The water and the beach seemed to dominate the landscape, and they maintain a wide network of publicly accessible boardwalks and parks. This is a typical scene, unique trees, beach, green grass, you can imagine the yuppies doing yoga on the lawn and the sound of rolling surf. Strange birds were hopping around on the trees and grass. 

Santa Monica, Tree and Fence, 5 x 7" watercolour, cold press, 1997 (No. 169)

 

 

But what would a painting trip be without a painting of a canon?  For example in Guelph, or Stratford Ontario. The palm trees here are a giveaway that this is not Ontario! I like the weight, texture and reflection of the metal cannon, it looks almost photographic in places.

Santa Monica, Cannon, 5 x 7" watercolour, cold press, 1997 (No. 170)

 

And another great scene of the beach with waves crashing into a a breakwater. You can imagine the Baywatch lifeguards running down the beach. In fact the water was pretty cold so not many swimmers without a wet suit. Plenty of sun bathers though.The use of purple in the distant mountains was quite effective, it must have been alizarin crimson red and french ultramarine blue.

Santa Monica, Breakwater, 5 x 7" watercolour, cold press, 1997 (No. 163)

 

Finally, I am showing a typical house that looks over the beach, it is covered in plaster and painted in bright pastel tones, with an art deco style. I was just talking about painting a blue sky, in this example it looks like I used cobalt blue or perhaps a mix of cerulean blue and french ultramarine blue. The attention to shadow tones is fantastic, another example of me not knowing anything about tonal colours but able to create accurately shadowed yellow and peach. I am not bragging, just wishing young Darlington had appreciated his paintings a bit more at the time! 

Venice Beach, Pastel House, 5 x 7" watercolour, cold press, 1997 (No. 164)

 There are a couple more from the trip I wont show for space, one of a statue, and one of a group of palm trees in Santa Monica (No. 0165, No. 0166)

Somerled Condo Fruit Tree and Entrance

 

Our condo building fronts onto Somerled Avenue and has a bus stop right there, and an auto mechanic and grocery store across the street. I can just pop out of my apartment and sit on a low brick retaining wall to get full sun and some things to paint. Admittedly there are not too many great scenes here but it is refreshing to get out of the home office and have some air. In this one, you can see the overhang and stairs of the front entrance, the black railings were omitted. In the distance is an apartment building. The decorative tree is there in the middle as the focal point around which the other elements are arranged. In the Summer this tree makes little red berries you can eat. There is also a bus stop tucked away behind the tree, and a car going down the avenue. 

Painting clear blue skies with phthalo blue paints is tough because this paint is highly staining, meaning that it stays where the brush touches the paper. I went as fast as possible here but the sky is still blotchy as if there were clouds. Also, the edges around the big tree with yellow leaves are too jagged. I am going to try wetting the paper a little bit next time, and try and nail the perfect clear blue sky. I first noticed how clear and blue the sky had become during the pandemic in the Grocery Store lineup painting, and after painting the 27 stations of the green line metro, I got pretty good at it, as seen in the terminus paintings.

In other news the red alert continues for Montreal and other parts of Canada. I found an article on Montreal Blog, that described things we can do in a pandemic red alert, while they didn't mention painting that said it was okay to explore the city and its parks if you were alone. The main thing is to avoid gatherings of people and wear a mask. 

Somerled Condo Fruit Tree and Entrance 4 x 6" hot press, watercolour, October, 2020

Image of Science, Glow of Art (sketch)

As I catalogue my artwork collection (up to over 1500 paintings and counting), I am also re-reading my blog. When I wrote about Escape Route, a painting that deals with a similar topic as Science vs. Art, I mentioned that I should do another version in a decade, which would have been 2018. So the other day I sketched out an idea for another science-art themed painting. Normally I like to finish a painting and show it on the blog, but here is the sketch. On the left there is a stained glass that depicts a molecular structure in coloured-glass panels.  On the right is a 3-D structure of the same molecular structure. The sun is situated behind the stained glass, so that coloured light is illuminating the molecular structure. The idea is that artistic skills can provide an illumination on science. Meanwhile the science is being a subject matter for the artwork. Both halves influence each other in the imagery. The rest of the painting will be a standard 'Darlington style' landscape with some pine trees and a curved horizon. 

Thus, it is planned for a large 22 x 30" format. Now that I made the blog I'll have to make the painting! I have 'Saturation Costs' and 'Flamingos Galore' on the to do list. For now though, with limited time and a short fall season, I will stick with small landscapes. 

 

Sunny Day on Somerled

Another cool sunny day today I got out for 15 minutes for a quick painting while the sun was up. Had trouble staying awake 6 am working its late now, people who work hard never talk about it! It is just an accumulation of issues at the University we can do this and get through it all. It seems the pandemic is sticking around so we all need to be careful now more than ever. But my art and this blog is a welcome distraction- lets talk about the painting. I really worried about this one it was not coming together and it occurred to me my luck ran out! But once the trees went in and I put the orange trip and raw-sienna wash on the building it looked great. This is the same view as I did before when the sun was almost down. If you compare the two you will see the different compositions, and I actually alter the image (2 window or 6 windows) depending on the need. In the link I wanted the shadow and light to stand out, here, I liked the white window frames and brick colours. Artistic license on display!

Sunny Day on Somerled, 4 x 6" cold press, 300lbs, watercolour, October 2020

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

 

Thanks for the food! This time of year the harvest is complete and we have lots of fresh produce like squash and cranberries. These three squash are destined to become soup or puree. We cooked s few today and fed the seeds to the squirrels who went crazy for it. I did this painting out front in the last of the sunlight for the day, it keeps going down earlier and and earlier. Normally I am not a fan of still life painting but it was too tempting to try and capture those oranges with my new paints! Finally, the orange paint gets its time to shine. 

Two and a half squash. 4 x 6" hot press, watercolour, October 2020

One of the squash didn't fit on the first painting, so I did this one of it. The cream colour was a dilute neutral yellow, while the orange was the same as for the pumpkin. The sun went behind the clouds while painting this so it was overcast.

One squash. 4 x 6" hot press, watercolour, October 2020

 

 Earlier in the day I dropped off the Bahamas book at the library and made this painting on the way back. I sat on the same rock as I did for one of the first paintings I did this year, of the same scene in spring. It was neat to come full circle, the tree on the left just had buds in the first painting, now they have changed colour and are falling off. It is interesting to compare the two paintings because the first one was done with my old palette before I understood colour mixing. I puzzled over how to best paint the brick tones. Here I simply used iron oxide red, indo blue, and some ferrari red. 

Benny Cultural Center and Medical Center (parking lot in between) 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, October 2020

Urban-Industrial Hipster, Fall colours

 

Here is the end of rue Saint-Zotique, where it meets Parc Avenue. It is the edge of Little Italy neighborhood where there is a bulk food store I go to once a month or so to pick up spices and staple food. They have plenty of safety precautions there which is great. On the way back I made this painting, mostly because of the incredible place to sit. There was a solid pink bench on a quiet alley, part of a food emporium. The sun was at a low angle, warming me up after a cold bike ride. The scene was very urban-industrial, I believe they call that hipster. I may have added a few extra fall-coloured trees here to keep up with the theme. Backlit scenes are always tough, it is important to keep in some contrast elements like the windows that had strong reflections.

Urban-Industrial Hipster, 5 x 7 cold press, watercolour, October 2020