Raining downtown, various scenes

Seeking shelter under the rail bridge and I caught a good view up Peel street, with the car headlights reflecting off the wet road. Its every painters dream to paint a scene of cars driving through the city on a rainy day with the coloured lights beaming off the slick asphalt. At least, a lot of kitsch paintings show this kind of scene, usually with taxi cabs in New York! The problem in reality, is that its hard to paint when its raining, and you can't really stand in the middle of the road. This location offers the perfect spot, near the bike path and sidewalk with complete shelter overhead. 

Peel street reflections, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

The trick to painting these beer cans was to keep the lines really crisp while the rest of the painting had a slightly blurry effect. Capturing the correct shade of aluminum took some artistic wits too. I wont spoil it and tell my secret formula, I call it 'beer can grey'. Ironically, the smell of malted barley was in the air, it occasionally wafts over from the malt factory across the basin. 

Beer cans in rain storm, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

These adjacent squirrel nests are all ready for winter. With abundant leaves on the ground, they had no trouble building them. Who said anything about a housing crisis? In the foreground is part of the Old Port water feature that is used for paddle boats in the summer, but drained for the winter. Cartier bridge is seen in the background. 

Squirrel nests old port, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

In 1931, the city built a tunnel under the Lachine canal called the Wellington Tunnel. It was abandoned in 1994 when the bridge was completed rendering it obsolete. Nowadays, it is covered in graffiti, and the entrance way is barricaded with a wall of concrete blocks. I ventured down the path a little and painted a scene of the wall from the main entrance. In researching this location on the internet, I found an interesting art and music project by Jen Reimer and Max Stein, who actually went in the tunnel and recorded a music and light show. 

Wellington tunnel, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025 

Another abandoned structure, its Silo #5, a very long and narrow industrial building that dominates the landscape on the west side of Old Port Montreal. Its facade is rusted and dilapidated, with a range of graffiti names adorning the building. This is a hybrid painting where I painted over the top of an old painting to create special effects. It started to rain again and I had to paint fast...a couple of splashes here and there, detail detail, and it was done. 

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