Hot Day

Albert Seaman's Paintings, Drawings and Essays

Hot day in Niagara

Watercolour on Arches 140 lb HP paper. Image size 12" (30.5 cm) by 16" (40.6 cm) ©

Thursday, August 4th., 1988 would not normally have been a good choice of days to visit Niagara-on-the-Lake if we had not been more or less obliged to do so. Having previously obtained tickets for the Shaw Festival, the course was pretty well set in advance. And so, despite a day of soaring summer temperatures, our family headed off to one of our favourite places.

With the mercury well into the ninety-degree Fahrenheit range, the old buildings, which had been built long before air conditioning was invented, lost some of their appeal. While my wife took refuge in the book shop which was managing to stay a little cooler than most other places, I went off to obtain material for a painting which had been planned for some time.

This watercolour is on hot-pressed paper, which I would not normally have used for this type of subject. However, it was the most readily available at the time. In the layout stage, the figures in the middle were moved around quite a lot to obtain an arrangement that would not interfere with the accuracy of the landscape. The resulting bare centre leaves something to be desired but is necessary for the focus to be Niagara-on-the-Lake and not the pedestrians in the middle.

Picture status - In a private collection.