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
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