Stunned by the Colour

Totally stunned by the colour.  For some reason I have not painted in Algonquin park till this year.  We hit the peak of the colours.  Walls of colour.  Odd colour - wild purple, loud rose, every red in the book and a few more.  Excited.  We drove for near 250 kilometers looking for something to paint.  Harold screaming to just sop and paint.  Brain on overload.  Finally we started looking for small patches of colour that might tell a story.  A wall of brilliant hots just doesn't do it.  The human eye with its large field of view sees the large sweeps of colour in context with complements, structures, greys etc.  So we looked for chunks that would stand on their own.  We ended up on the outskirts of town (Whitney).  Set up on a dirt road.  Middle of the road!

End of Day Light

Using the Stapleton Kearns fingers trick we determined that we had about 30 minutes till the sun disappeared below the tree line.

Some Structure

The odd person driving along, creeping, thinking moose or who knows what, didn't get upset with characters set up mid road.  It got us painting instead of driving.

The next day we woke up still stunned.  We faced walls like this.

No Justice with Photo

So we settled in to a spot without hordes of picture snappers.  Quiet and beautiful.  Paintings in every direction.

My Studio

Chunking down I settled on a scene with greens and violets dominant.

Massing In Shapes - Big Brush

A quick wash, a thumbnail sketch to determine shapes and values and wait for the wash to set up. First, the complements to the final layers of colour.  Then....

Stand Back

This time we decided to use chairs to help with stamina.

Perfect!