Late afternoon scenes around Old Montreal

In the background you see Habitat 67, once part of Expo 67, the apartments are now privately owned and still lived in to this day. In the foreground is part of the st Lawrence river where it connects up with the port and the Peel basin. Leisure craft were hanging out, the people catching rays and playing music, while diners ate at the fancy floating restaurant that has a spa on top. 

Habitat 67 boats spa, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

Finding some shade, I was fascinated by these birds soaring around in circles with the up drafts and down drafts. Mostly seagulls, there were also a few pigeons zooming about, seemingly just for fun, and why not? There is actually a bridge here, and they were flying under it, around, then over the buildings, and back over the water in circles. With the sun low, it created a silver lining effect on the birds feathers in motion. It seemed impossible to paint this on location, no photos... so I spent some time trying to memorize the shapes of the gulls and pigeons as they flew, and how the sun affected their feathers. After making a pale outline with a number 2 paint brush, I filled in the entirety of the space around the birds, which was a tricky painting in its own right, then quickly filled in the birds' shadows and textures being careful to leave the highlight showing (no white paint is used). As I finished, a security guard walked up and said nice painting, but you have to leave its not permitted to stand here! So that's why the painting is not initialed. At least I got to finish the painting. 

Silver lining birds, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

On the way back I stopped near of Berri/UQAM station looking north, and saw a large fleet of cop cars with blue and red lights blinking everywhere. A distant sound of drums and chanting could be heard, and on the horizon a group of protesters was approaching. After the painting, I rode north along the bike path and went by the group, they were Palestinian supporters protesting the war in the middle east. Everything seemed to go down peacefully here, and some of the cop cars dissipated. 

Cops Berri station, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025