End of The Day, King Street, Toronto

8 x 10 oil on panel

When I want to start some larger paintings, I often do smaller studies to get a sense of how they will look when painted. I get to decide colour schemes, compositions etc.

A lone "suit" heads home after a day at work in Toronto's financial district. This scene is on King near Bay.

Thanks to Ben Roffelsen for the photo reference.

12 x 12 oil on canvas

Honest Eds is another famous Toronto Landmark, opened by Ed Mirvish in 1948 on Bathurst and Bloor Streets. With its 23,000 light bulbs, it looks like a theatre marquee rather than a retail establishment. Unfortunately, its future is short lived. Read more  on wikipedia.

 Thanks to John Tavares for the photo reference.

 

Toronto Skyline Reflected

 

24 x 24 oil on canvas

Often if a painting won't photograph well, its because there is something wrong with the painting. With this one, I knew I had the colour temperature and values wrong. Richard Schmid says in his book Alla Prima that if a colour looks like "mud', its not the colour that is muddy, it is the wrong temperature against the other colours on the painting. I struggled with this picture, first  tightening up too much (all those twinkly lights don't show the same intensity from far away). And I had the values and temperature wrong. (Not much right going on) I finally changed my photo reference to black and white and painted from that. I find it helps to do this in order to get a fresh look at values.

I also find that if I take a painting too seriously, and want it to look a certain way rather than letting it find its way as I paint, I will find ways to be unsuccessful.

I'm still not sure about this one...I go between sort of liking it and wanting to repaint it.
Thanks to John Tavares for the photo reference.

Cold Toronto Night

8x8 oil on canvas

Often I like to do a smaller study before taking on a large canvas. There were a lot of things I liked about this picture..the steam, the reflections and the colour combination. A small study helps in the process, but painting large is the only way to find out how it will look on a large scale.

Thanks to John Tavares for the photo reference.

Night Rain in Blues

8 x 10 oil on board

I still want to do some night scenes on a smaller scale, experimenting with different night time color palettes before I attempt a larger one. For this scene, I used ultramarine blue, ivory black., cadmium red, yellow ochre, and white. 

Late Night on Yonge Street

36 x 48 oil on canvas

I've been experimenting painting larger sizes these days and I'm still not sure how much I like it. I definitely like the impact of a larger painting but the downside is that mistakes are huge, they are more expensive to paint, and they take way more room and more time. Unfortaunately, the only way to find out what we like to do is by doing it.

This is another night scene from Yonge Street in Toronto.

Thanks again to John Tavares for the photo reference.

Nocturne No. 3

24 x 24 oil on board

Sometimes the hardest decision in a painting is finding a grey mix that is suitable for the overall background of the picture which will hopefully add to the harmony of the piece. Being a night time scene, I didn't want something too warm, so I decided on a mix of terra rosa, ultramarine blue, with a touch of ivory black. Keeping a limited palette, I hoped to mix most of the colors with adding cadmium red, yellow ochre and white. I added a couple of touches of viridian. Night scenes will be a whole new learning experience.

The local critics (husband) decided that I should remove the litter bin from the painting. I really don't mind it, but perhaps I could put in newspaper boxes instead.
 

Thanks to John Tavares for the photo reference for this painting.