Montreal Aviation Museum

Years ago I drew the exterior of the Montreal Aviation Museum, mostly because I was interested in rendering the weathered textures of The Old Stone Barn, where are the aircraft and artifacts are housed. I hadn’t been back there in awhile, and to my pleasant surprise, it’s even more interesting to sketch now because there are planes, or parts of planes, outside the building itself. And of course with a little snow on them, these objects add some interest at the base of the massive grey silos.

There’s not much colour in the November landscape on a cloudy day, but I love mixing greys, so my palette was very limited today. Cerulean Blue, Raw Sienna, Cadmium Red, Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine, mostly. And of course a touch of yellow for the details. Painted on a quarter sheet of Winsor & Newton watercolour paper.

Red coat

The first snow of the season usually disappears quickly, but what a gift to find that the snow from yesterday’s storm is still on the ground this morning. I rushed out to paint something, anything, with a bit of snow on it. My old parking spots on Avenue Sainte Anne in Pointe Claire Village have disappeared thanks to some new condo buildings, but luckily I found an interesting scene of a parking lot behind some storefronts on Lakeshore Road. It’s a busy place in the morning because the building on the right is a drugstore, so there’s lots of activity in that parking lot in the back.

When it’s a constantly changing scene like this, I lock in the important parts — or rather the moving parts — of the drawing first. That means I draw the cars and the man in the red coat first and then add in buildings, road and trees. While I sat there at least ten different cars pulled in and out, but I had my drawing and I stuck with it.

Colours in winter are soft, so for this I used mostly Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, Quinacridone Rose and Raw Sienna. With those I can get the soft tones of walls and sky as well as the wonderful slushy greys for the road. Sketched on a block of Hahnemuhle The Collection Watercolour paper, CP.

Wet snow

Winter arrived suddenly today. Last week people were outside in shorts and today the snow plows were criss-crossing the neighbourhood. Of course I could hardly sleep last night knowing that I could paint my wheelbarrow today. And although I got to it rather late in the day when everything was starting to melt and I was losing the light, there was still some snow on it and it was a good start to the winter painting season.

I also sketched Alice having her afternoon nap. At the end of the day, there’s always one eye on me as I sketch her in case I suddenly decide to feed her or take out to the park to retrieve tennis balls. She will happily go from sleeping to standing if I move too quickly, so I sketch quietly and hope no one rings the doorbell.

Three plants, three pens

Winter is a great time for studio experimentation. For pulling out all the tools and materials I haven’t used in a while — the ones that have been gathering dust during plein air season. I know, winter is not here yet but it’s dark before 5 pm, and the days are often grey. The studio is bright and warm and it’s just fun to play.

Yesterday I brought in some dead stuff from the garden — various seed pods and dried out flower stalks.Today I set them out on my drawing table and used three different pens for drawing. At the top is my old standby: the Platinum Carbon Desk pen which I love for making very fine lines. In the middle is the fat Confucius Duke Fude pen with the bent nib. That one is great for fat lines and variable width lines. It’s also great when you need to cover a large area with black ink. At the bottom: the lovely Kakimori Brass nib pen dipped in black ink. And the brown: Walnut Ink diluted with a brush and some water.

Imagine winter

Last week it felt like mid-summer and this week it feels like winter is fast approaching. The trees are mostly bare, and night arrives at 5 pm. I really have to make sure I get out to sketch earlier in the afternoon to get the light.

Today I went out to my favourite spot in Pointe Claire Village, to paint my favourite yellow wall. We haven’t had any snow here yet, but I just can’t wait to paint it. I did this from my car, looking at the late fall scene and imagining a dusting of the white stuff on everything.

Announcing a new online course: Rugged Rocks and Sea

I’m thrilled to launch a new online watercolour course today! This is one I’ve been hoping to do for a long time, and I finally found just the right inspiration in the breathtaking coastline of the Mediterranean. Along the rocky shores of Spain and Greece, I painted rugged rocks and crashing waves, and I’ve posted many of those scenes here on the blog.  

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I love painting rocks and waves, and I realized that it’s because when I first started painting in watercolour, I was lucky to attend workshops in Kennebunkport, Maine, with two generous and inspiring teachers. These two workshops were my first experience painting outdoors; my first immersive retreat with other painters; and my first time painting by the sea. These early and powerful experiences gave me a life-long love of plein air painting. It’s why, to this day, painting rocks and waves has so many magical associations for me.

In Rugged Rocks and Sea: Sketching Colourful Coastal Scenes, I’ll show you all the steps I use when painting rocks and waves. We’ll warm up by creating a full palette of swatches for sketching rocks. Then we’ll paint a series of small seaside scenes inspired by my recent travels to the Mediterranean — each one a little different and a little more complex. Along the way, we’ll work on composition, values and edge control in watercolour. 

As always, there’s a special discount for the first week, so have a look here to learn more!

Much more than purple

The purple smokebush (cotinus coggygria) in my garden is exactly that all summer. Purple. But in the fall each leaf is a little flame. I picked up a few of them, spread them out on my desk and sketched them while talking on Zoom with some friends. I especially love the ones that change from green to yellow to red all within one leaf. The best colours for capturing this display: Quinacridone Gold and Coral, with a little Hooker’s Green and Burnt Sienna mixed in. Plus a bit of Violet for the darkest darks.

The day the leaves fell

I don’t know how this happened. Yesterday all the leaves were on the oak tree and today they were all on the ground. The whole process is a bit of a mystery to me. Some years the tree hangs on to the leaves until January, and then they fall on fresh snow, making a huge mess that can only be cleaned up in spring. This year it seems quite early for this to happen.

I decided to document this process in my sketchbook today. As I sketched, the leaves drifted down gently in the breeze and I added that movement to my sketch. I guess you know what I’ll be doing on the weekend.

My favourite tree, a little late

I didn’t get out to sketch at all this week because I was filming a new online course. While I was working away in my video studio, we had rain AND several overnight frosts, which meant that all the leaves on my favourite tree dropped to the ground. And although I usually sketch this maple in colour, when I finally got around to sketching it today, I realized that it really called for line instead of shape. The tree is quite stunning when it turns bright yellow, but when I was drawing it it seemed to me that there was as much beauty in the shape of branches today as there was in the colour of the leaves last week.

I used my Platinum Carbon pen in my Hahnemuhle A4 portrait format book and although I started drawing the trunk of the tree and the light on it rather carefully in the beginning, by the end, I was frantically scribbling in branches. It takes a whole lot more lines to draw this than it does brushstrokes to paint it.

Parc Laurier

What a day to be out sketching. And even better when you can do it with friends. It was the monthly outing of Urban Sketchers Montreal, at Parc Laurier. Ten years ago I co-founded this group with Marc Taro Holmes, and since I missed the anniversary outing in September, it was particularly sweet to make up for it today by catching up with friends and enjoying the beauty of this fall day in Montreal. It was also great to see that the group is still going strong with a solid turnout of a few dozen people every month and an upcoming exhibition.