Sunset on canal, ready or not

As an artist, you are either ready or not to paint a scene like this. The effect barely lasts 10 minutes, and a photograph would never capture the subtle hues and warm grey tones in the shadowed elements. To start, all the painting gear is set up in the saddle pack of my bike, which I can set up with the kickstand anywhere in a matter of a minute and be painting. Today the paint was goopy from the humidity making it even more of a challenge, so I adapted my technique and let the colours flow as they wished. 

Pink house sunset with clouds, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

Another iconic scene on the Lachine canal, this old rusty water tower that defines the old industrial skyline. If you were to cross the canal and find your way underneath this tower, you would be in a hipster micro-brew restaurant where the cyclists go for a beer. Luckily I got the sky down quickly and with as little moisture as possible to facilitate the over-painting of the water tower and building elements. At this time of day, green becomes near black, so I added shadow green (PBk31) and carbon black (PBk6 ). The letters and numbers in parenthesis are the colour pigment codes.  

Sundown water tower, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

Across the canal, there is a festival set-up with tents, booths, and an old jet stream camper trailer reflecting the sky. In the back left of the painting, there is a tower structure from Verdun water works, although in real life it was much further to the east, I brought the element in using my artistic license. The humid and muggy weather looks to be sticking around for awhile, it will make for some challenging location conditions, but still a lot easier and more pleasant than painting outside in the winter! 

Canal festival setup, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025 

 

Last minutes of light, NDG sunset

As the sun sets, buildings catch an orange light on top as the shadows stretch across the street and ascend into darkness. In this scene, the rear of the cultural center, the sun has set to the north west, creating a colourful silhouette of the building which is clad in blue, red, pink and green. On my left, I didn't show it, there is a community garden and a few people tending to their plants. 

Sunset over cultural center, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

Earlier I was up at the demo mall and made this painting of the view across the street. When orange sunlight hits the bricks, they take on a variety of warm earth tones. Even the shadows appear to glow. I did some nice ones like this last year including sunset on Walkley, and sundown in NDG. When the sun is going down there is not much time left to paint, so I tend to stay in NDG or close by. 

Sun setting on apartments, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

Initially, I rode out to the old strip mall that is slated for demolition to see if it was still there, and made a painting of the barber shop on the east side of the building. Its on an odd angle because the roof slopes up on an angle. I may stop by again this year from time to time since I started a series on this structure. My favorite one was the same view, but looking from across the street in winter of this year January.  

Demo mall sun down, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025 

Blue magenta and yellow bins, Dr. Dumpster strikes again

The thing about painting dumpsters is that they are usually in parking lots or driveways with good sight lines, and being big blocks of colour they are relatively easy. Rectangles also make for decent composition. In this case, there were blue, magenta and yellow bins in a row out in the back parking lot of the new Royalmount mall. I saw them from afar and was drawn in like a moth to a candle. It was ironic that the mall buildings in the background also looked like dumpsters, although that was probably not the intention. A hot sun was beaming down from behind, luckily I brought along a bucket hat I could wear to protect my neck and ears. Its been nice to roast in the sun for the last few days, soon enough I will be complaining about the heat!  The blue was done with royal blue (PB60) and phthalo sapphire (PB15), the magenta was quin megenta (PR122) with quin purple (PV55) shadows, and the yellow was benzi yello (PY154) with dark yellow shadows. To make dark yellow, I add either a greenish grey or orangish grey depending on tint. Iron oxides (PR101) and umbers (Pbr7) create the rust effects.

Blue magenta and yellow bins, watercolour 8 x 11" cold press, June 2025

Under the autoroute, no return!

It started out well enough, I decide to ride north on the back-roads... this involves going to Decarie mall, under the train tracks, through the Walmart shopping area and behind the old Hippodrome which is now a grassy field. Continuing north brings the industrial park and auto-route 40. Going under the auto-route enters into Bois de Brise neighborhood, and a large personal storage warehouse painted green, orange and white. This massive peony bush was growing next to an orange door... I tried to get the peonies as small as possible, there were actually thousands of blooms. 

Peonies and orange door, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

Next I took on a scene of these pedestrian signs strewn about, their arrows were pointing in all different directions. In the midst of painting it, the CN train went by and I took the opportunity to paint the front of the engine under the auto-route. In retrospect, I should have taken the opportunity to cross back to Montreal before this train arrived because it actually stopped, and the 'clang clang clang' just kept going and going. Luckily I had earplugs. A service pickup truck went by and I knew there was trouble. 

Signs and CN engine, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

Turns out the train was stopped for like 30 minutes, then when it started moving it took another 10 minutes to go by, it was several kilometers long. I took the opportunity to paint the stopped train, it was a complex scene but I had time. On the top of the painting is the bottom side of the auto-route, then in the middle is the back of a maroon train car, and the front of a metal-framed train car. Then the train X and lights which were flashing the whole time, and some barriers in the foreground. Adding to the effect, the train car had graffiti on it. In the end it looks almost like an abstract painting! 

No go, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025 

The education of intelligence

Funny thing about 'artificial intelligence' otherwise known as machine learning, is that a human has to teach it how to function. True story, not a Curio Folio this time, artificial intelligence started with early computers in the 1960's, the military was trying to use them to predict missile trajectories for interceptions. They used something called a ROC, a type of math equation that could be adjusted with a formula. They taught the computer to keep trying formulas until it learned the best one for the interception. Then they could add air speed, wind, and other variables and keep training the computer. This allowed missile interceptions to be much faster especially when computers sped up in subsequent generations. Modern 'AI' is all based on the same concept, albeit much more ambitious and involving trillions of data points. 

The education of intelligence, watercolour 7 x 11" cold press, June 2025

Bridge and other scenes

I was somewhere east of the Cartier bridge along Notre Dame street when I came across a small field full of wild daisies, with an unobstructed view of the river and bridge. Up to this point, large orange container-train cars, fences, and some kind of festival installment blocked the view. The traffic behind me was kind of noisy, but you wouldn't know it from this fantastic scene. Its like Monet showed up and painted the Cartier bridge! 
 

Wild daisies Cartier bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

In this unique composition, the Cartier bridge is seen directly overhead, with the boxy green steel supports underneath. Its a north view, so that's where the bridge slopes down into Montreal. The bridge is an inverted triangle stretching from top almost to bottom, while the steel supports are squares. Since the sun was over my left shoulder, the shadow of the bridge fell to the right.  

Bridge composition, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

In a nearby parking lot, someone was storing their winter tires? Three were in white bags, one was open, at least I hope those bags had tires in them I didn't check them out. This is one of those scenes that only Darlington would paint... I have to keep up my brand of being 'Monet of the parking lot' after all. 

Tires in parking lot, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025 

Downtown Montreal, bring on the heat

I thought this iconic milk bottle advertisement was gone, but there it was above one of the old brick buildings on Lucien L'Allier street. hidden behind all the new sky scraper condos they put in the old parking lot near the Bell Center. I did a winter scene of this milk bottle sometime around 1998, it was not surrounded by buildings back then.The weather today was far from being winter though, it was a hot sun, blue sky, with just a cool breeze. Bring on the heat I say.

Guaranteed fresh, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

When I was painting the milk bottle scene, people kept stopping, talking, taking pictures, lingering around... but it wasn't on account of me... there was some fancy sports car parked behind me. I often see people stop and take pictures in front of Ferrari cars and the like, as if pretending to own the car, which seems lame but whatever. This car had GTR on the front grill, which I just looked up and its a Nissan, so like, a budget Ferrari. The funny thing was as I painted, I noticed a parking ticket in the windshield which I included in the painting, they were parked near a fire hydrant. 

Parking ticket GTR, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025

 

A bit further on, I painted a scene of the Montreal Canadiens sign high atop the Centre Bell. Next time I need to paint the red shape a lot thinner and leave more room for the blue line. Of course, there are only concerts there now, the Canadiens were eliminated in the first round against Washington.  To make the red brick, I mixed burnt sienna (PR101) with pyrrol red (PR154), its a scintillating mixture. 

Centre Bell rear, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025