Winter and everything Montreal

Downtown near the Park du Quartier des spectacles, there is a large skating rink they were preparing today. It seemed wishful thinking that the rink would stay frozen for any amount of time, it will continue to get warmer next week, although tonight it will be below freezing. A small Zamboni was zooming around the rink making the surface ready for skaters. 

Ready the skating rink, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Painting orange and purple pylons, a protest went by... something to do with PEQ. After some internet research, it turns out that PEQ stands for Programme de l'expérience québécoise, it was a program meant to fast track permanent residency for foreign workers or students. It has been cancelled now, and presumably, these protestors were people who would have been otherwise eligible for the program. Several of my graduate students used this program to gain residency after they graduated. Those students I supervised at the University all have jobs now in the high tech sectors, biomedical and pharmaceutical research, and a few in medical school. 

Pylons and protestors, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Even though the temperature was slightly above zero ℃, the windchill felt significantly colder, and it was wet wind. Along st Urbain there is a police station, and many cop cars and SUV's park on the street. Last time, the vehicles were under yellow trees, which created neat reflections. There was also a scene of cop cars parked up and down Berri for the Palestine protests, as seen in the last painting of this blog from September. Painting vehicles is tricky due to their odd shapes and perspective. The perspective makes it so the front of the car is about half the size as the back of the car, but it depends how far away the car is. Sometimes you just gotta paint and not think about it. 

 Cop SUV snow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025 

Snowfall on Chinatown

Chinatown in Montreal is located along Rue De la Gauchetière between Rue Côté and Saint Dominique. The streets are lined with small restaurants and shops, with plenty of pedestrians including locals and tourists milling about. With snow in the forecast, I headed out there by bike and got a few good paintings in before the wind and cold finally got to me. This scene shows one of the trees with red lanterns, and the facades of a popular row of Chinese-style restaurants.

Snowfall on Chinatown, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

The sky today was painted with a dilute mix of pyrol orange (PO73) and indo blue (PB60), this combo can be used for night sky, or for a pale periwinkle (powder blue). Searing through the gloom were a row of bright red lantern spheres with yellow tassels. I did this painting while the background of the first painting was drying. Then I could overlay the tree on the first painting, and come back to this one for details. In this way, I can do several painting on location in cold wet weather. 

Red spherical lantern, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

The graffiti morons got to this mural... in the old days it had a large graffiti by SCAN, so when the city painted over it with a mural, I think the graffiti people must have felt obliged to paint over the mural. At any rate, the effect is pretty neat, with a porcelain-like background of a writhing dragon, the local cityscape painting in the middle, and a shiny graffiti name outlined in yellow and black. That PJD25 guy need to be busted. On the roof, there is some kind of patio bar. 

Graff on mural, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Unfortunately, Chinatown is suffering from neglect and decay, with a large number of buildings boarded up and shut down. Developers are licking their chops to knock down structures and build shiny glass condos, but the heritage status and importance to local history, and the boon to tourism has kept things in place. By the looks of it, hundreds of million of dollars would be needed to update and revitalize the existing structures. 

Sundown on Chinatown, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

CBC ran an article about Wings Noodles, a popular restaurant of 75 years in Chinatown that has closed down its business. By coincidence, I painted these signs today, including the Wings sign, which you see on the right side of the painting. Hopefully something can be done to reinvigorate the neighborhood. We talk about Quebec culture, and Chinatown is part of it. In the 19^th century this was a Jewish neighborhood, which gradually gave way to a Chinese community throughout the 20^th century.  

Wings Noodles sign, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025 

Sun struggling through the clouds

Parts of autoroute 136 are covered, I painted one of the entrance tunnels the other day on a cold afternoon. Further east, the Viger square park stretches over the autoroute, providing some much needed open space and places to sit for the locals, complete with a dog park. Apparently, its also a good spot to make watercolour paintings, and to roll funny smelling cigarettes. You can guess which activity I was doing. Small patches of snow were still hanging on, but with above zero ℃ temperatures it will melt soon. Having said that, snow is on the forecast for tomorrow. 

Viger square park, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

An arched bridge crosses over the Lachine canal on Mill street, connecting the Bonadventure expressway 10 with Old Montreal. A bike path also goes underneath. Our new Mayor of Montreal said they will not remove any bike paths, but might slow down the development of new ones. In this painting, you can also see a new condo building they completed last year, it is clad in blue, with a pale grey circle in the middle. The sun was struggling to get through the clouds today. 

Arc bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Every so often I take a crack at this scene, it gets slightly better each time. I was rather hoping the tourists would be absent this time of year, but it was still full, and several people had to talk to me, or give a running commentary to their friend or child as to what I was doing. Its okay being an entertainment product, there is not much to do around here after labor day. The pigeons didn't seem to mind. 

Bonsecours Market pigeons, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025 

Silo #5 scenes

In Old Port Montreal where all the tourists tend to hang out, there is a prominent factory in the background which has been shut down for a number of years. Its called silo #5 and it used to be some sort of grain storage and elevator system, involved in the malted barley (beer) industry. A dirt road provides access to the nearby Bota Bota Spa... its a spa on a boat with attached restaurant, and the road loops around silo #5 to a small outcrop of land. On location there were big, sweeping views of the st. Lawrence river and distant Jacques Cartier bridge. Looking west gave this neat view of the rear grain elevator system, and a giant chunk of twited metal and gears in the foreground, covered in graffiti. 

Silo #5 grain elevators, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, November 2025

Looking from the front angle, there was a small bridge connecting two of the massive structures. To malt barley, the seeds have to germinate, then get dried out when the sugar content is maximum. Part of this factory was probably for germination, while the silos were for storage of the finished grain. Then, it would go off to the brewery to become beer. Historically, this malting industry in Montreal supplied most of North America. Cheers!

Silo #5 cross bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

 

 

Snow pile commuter train

At the end of the Rona+ parking lot there are some good views of the local scenery, and in the winter they pile snow up here. One day in 2023 there was a big pile of snow that blocked all the view, it was a small mountain of snow! Today, the snow was piled up but melting fast, and the nearby tree had dropped yellow leaves on top, which is an odd thing to happen. Usually all the leaves fall off, then it snows, but this year the leaves took a long time to change colour and fall off, many trees still have leaves. As I painted, the commuter train rolled by. There is a new style of train, it has a large blue or teal circle on the side... its easier to paint than the other one that has a wave pattern. 

Snow pile commuter train, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Snowy night intense purple sky

An old bridge next to the autoroute 15 overpass is now reserved for bikes and pedestrians, it can be seen toward the right side of the painting complete with customized graffiti. In the background, is a large factory on st Patrick close to av de L'Eglise, now its a mix of different kinds of businesses like gyms and studios.  A yellowish lamp was illuminating the fresh snow and concrete embankments of the bridge head and canal. It was a tricky painting to pull off on location especially considering the wet snow constanly falling. Both paintings today were completed on location... I have some really warm and waterproof clothing to make it possible. 

Passerelle Côte-st-Paul night snow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

The first layer of this painting was done at the location, but it quickly turned into a mushy mess because wet snow was coming down strongly onto the painting. Since I had the second wood drying rack, I could put it back into my bike bag and move to the next location (seen in the first painting of the blog). When I finished the bridge painting, I then finished this one... just standing next to my bike. I really thought it was a distaster, like a waste of paper after the first layer got soaked, but the main shapes and colours held up, and the sky got an incredible wet and windy texture. The graffiti was all done by my crew, FITZ, CILS, DYER, PJD25 and DDAWG. 

Silo dumpsters snow storm, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Purple sky snow covered night

Thick blankets of snow covered everything in Montreal including these pine trees near Decarie expressway. Nearby lamps were casting an amber tint over the snow, intermixing with purple from the sky. Getting the subtle tints right was the challenges, for example the pine trees go from orange to grey, and the snow had variations of orange and caramel tones. 

Pine trees near Decarie tint, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Strong white flood-lights illuminated the local skateboard park which was blanket in snow. In the background is the local school with a few orange lamps. It was very quiet here, almost silent due to the time of day and the snow, which absorbs sound effectively. To do the glow-effect of the lamp, a series of rings are made wet-in-wet starting with greenish pale yellow, then merging with the soft purple sky. 

Snow covered skateboard park, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025