Twilight Zone

 It was such a nice evening to do a few paintings around town. The sun had set, leaving a ruby red sky filled with purplish clouds. It was impossible to see this scene directly without standing on Cavendish, a busy street, so I kind of poked out every now and then to see the colours. A city truck, the kind with the big arrows to divert traffic showed up and provided some cover for me, which was a nice gesture. A confused pedestrian asked me if I worked for the city. But the driver was just picking up some junk food and drove off. What a job that would be, to stop traffic at will and make paintings.

Sunset on Cavendish, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2678)

The sky turned a dark blue with shades of pink, the buildings became almost black, and the artificial lights provided interesting shadows. By the time I finished this painting it was night time, and the store front gained more prominence. It was a conscious decision to paint this at dusk or night because during the day it is a rather dull corner of a building, but in the dark the various light sources create drama. The pizza sign is lit from behind, the store interior is fully illuminated, the neon 'ouvert' sign is prominent, the street light casts a whitish glow, and the remains of the sunset made a dim lighting on the road. One adjustment, I painted the foliage in a pure black (PBk6) with accents of perylene black (PBk31) and touch of yellow.

Atlas Pizza at Dusk, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2679)

Vaccine and Painting

 

Today June 2, after some wrangling with the system I got the first vaccine dose in the morning and then did a few paintings in the nice weather. The sun was at the correct angle for the dépanneur (convenience store) on Fielding Avenue, but a mail truck was blocking the exact spot I wanted to stand on a shady corner. As I waited for the truck to leave, it occurred to me that maybe it belonged in the scene. I frantically got the outline down and tried to commit as much detail as possible to memory, and then of course it drove off. To capture the red I used pyrol red (PR254) with isoindo yellow (PY110), unfortunately I did not have pyrol vermilion (PR255) on my reduced palette, that would have been the exact shade, but the mix I created is pretty darned close. Same kind of thing for the caramel-coloured bricks, that is literally raw sienna (PBr7) but I had to use yellow ochre (PY43) with burnt sienna and Umber (PBR7). I like this painting a lot, but there was no natural elements like trees or grass. 

Mail Truck and Dépanneur, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2677)

To make up for the lack of trees and grass I stopped at the park, and painted a lot of green. The fence was all wobbly at the top which created an interesting line. The bench was iron oxide violet (caput mortum PR101), and raw umber with other shades of grey. My green mix got a little dark, I have to watch the phthalo green (PG36) and benzi orange (PO62) mixes they can get heavy, I should go benzi yellow (PY154), then phthalo green, then orange as needed. For the green shadows I added a greenish umber (PBr7). With summer upon us, I find it necessary to re optimize the mixes which seem different than spring. Sadly, trees are being cut down all over NDG due to worms, we can hear the wood chipper going frequently. You can see one of the tree stumps just above the bench, that is one less shadow.

One Less Shadow, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021

Campus Greens

 Just off the beaten path, Loyola campus has a series of gardens that  the students use to grow vegetables and other interesting crops like tea and herbs. The earth was covered in a white tarpaulin, like you see in the painting, in fact gardeners were busy digging and planting today. This scene has at least 6 distinct trees, each captured with their own colours and textures. I had to throw in the leaning parking sign of course. To get the sparkle effect on the trees, which was created by the wind blowing the leaves up and down, I quickly dragged the brush across the cold pressed paper. One palette note I took off benzi deep orange (PO36) and replaced it with benzi yellow-orange (PO62), which created a but lighter brighter greens. 

Campus Greens, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2676)

Experimental Abstracts, May Wrap

What do you call a group of octopuses? Trick question, octopuses is the answer, or perhaps octopi. But what do you call an octopus with three arms? I think it would be called a tripus. At any rate, this underwater scene made good use of yellow ochre (PY43) and burnt sienna (PR101) with some phthalo green (PG7) accents. After establishing the outline, the shapes were created wet in wet, then a background was filled in.

Consortium of Tripuses, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2675b)

 Paint landscapes in Montreal long enough and you get to appreciate the green spaces, not to mention the orange pylons. Some of the pylons have blue, purple and even pink. Apparently they cost $1 per day for the city to rent, so may as well get our money's worth. The theme of the painting is green space, and how it is challenged by development.

Green Space, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2673b)

 

This was essentially a palette cleanser, the new caput mortum needed a little TLC. A variety of red orange and maroon was added to compliment. Caput mortum is a marketing name, the pigment is a finely ground iron oxide red that appears as a dark dusty maroon, but the name suggests that it is made from the remains of Egyptian mummies. Whether or not this story was true at some point is anyone's guess, but it makes for good fiction. 

A lot of names of paints are carry overs from the past, like ivory black (not made from Ivory), Indian red (not from India), Turner's yellow, Payne's grey etc. (not the same pigments those artist used), and so on. Incidentally, I have boycotted Indian red due to the inherent racism of the name, even if it supposedly refers to India the country, many sports teams have come under flack, and the football team with a similar name has finally agreed to change it. I think it is time to change the name of a few paints to get with the times. Indian red and Ivory black are the two I am thinking of, it seems unnecessary to cling to those dated names, one has the negative connotations, and the other name refers to a history (and present time) of an illegal ivory trade that threatens elephants and rhinos. I finally purchased Ivory black, but have always referred to it as 'bone black' in the blog which I will continue to do so.

Earth Lines, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2674b)

Place St. Henri Station, Orange Line Metro

 

Like many stations, Place St. Henri is undergoing a massive renovation that will open two new entrances on either side of rue St. Jacques. To signify this change, some of the orange construction pylons were featured in the foreground, with the old station in the background. For a small painting there is a lot of detail, it took longer than usual to complete. It will be neat to go back when they are finished the construction projects and do some paintings of the new stations. There were other scenes around St. Henri that seemed cool to paint, but the rain was threatening this afternoon. This completes the first third of the Orange line Montreal from Cote Vertu to Vendome, the next phase runs through the downtown, and then towards the North to Laval. As the summer heats up these locations get tough, heavily exposed to sun and difficult to get to and fro when it hits around 30℃ as it will next week.

Place St. Henri Station, Orange Line, Pylons, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2675a)

Cote Ste Catherine Station, Orange Line Metro

 

Now that the curfew is over we can be out after 9:30PM without worrying about the cops. For my birthday Cilei got me a nice bike light but there was never an occasion to use it at night due to curfew. Today I headed out to paint for second time, just after 8:30PM sunset and made my way to Cote Ste-Catherine metro on a cool pleasant evening. The sun was down leaving the sky an inky night blue, the interior lighting from the station cast an amber glow onto the sidewalk. People kept asking me where the bus stop had moved, apparently some construction caused it to relocate, but I had no answer. Tonight I still wore the mask just in case.

Cote Ste Catherine Metro, Amber Glow, Orange Line 1, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2674a)

 

As the sky turned into a pool of indigo, I had more trouble seeing the colours and doing the brush work. Painting at night is more difficult than the day, you have to rely on instinct and luck to some extent. Inside the station you can see the top of the escalators that lead down to the platform. There were several light sources, coming from the interior of the station, cast from the unseen street lights to my left, reflecting blue light from the sky, and a window in the background had some fluorescent bulbs. In the foreground were delicate white flowers that seemed to be dancing under the night sky.

Cote Ste Catherine Metro, Orange Line, Windows, 2, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2673a)

De la Savane, Namur Stations, Orange Line Metro

 

The orange line metro has many little stops that only the locals would know well. Other than this painting, I have only been out to de la Savane a few times over 16 years of living in Montreal. It was crafted from that old 70's era brown concrete and had an industrial bunker design similar to Vendome. I rode around the small station trying to find the best place to paint the scene. Where could I paint this station? The front looked okay but was backlit, the back was nicely front lit but looked like a pillbox. An impressive pine tree, possibly a cedar, was growing on the shady side, it was held up with several steel poles so I could tell somebody had tried hard to preserve it. The tree was thriving, at the top of the scene you see little pine berries growing. For a few moments I was transported to Algonquin park, painting tree bark and smelling pine needles. 

De la Savane 1, Orange Line metro, cedar tree, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No, 2670)

 

The feeling of being in Algonquin park did not last long. This station is right beside the Decarie and appears to be under heavy development as you can see in the background all the cranes. Overhanging the entrance was a broad concrete floating roof with lamps, it was similar to the construction of the Cadillac station. Controlling all of the browns and greys was easier than before with all the new paints, especially umber (PBr7) and caput mortem (iron oxide violet PR101). I used magenta (PR122) to make the metallic shadows, and cobalt blue (PB28) and indo blue (PB60) in the sign. I like the way the interlocking brick worked out, and the overall busy feeling.

De la Savane 2, Orange Line metro, overhang 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2671)

 

Not far from de la Savane is Namur, a busier station located near the big box store shopping district. The station itself was a big box of bricks with two standard entrances. Surrounded by the Decarie and with tight sidewalks there were not too many options to paint this one, so I found a spot standing near the entrance, partially standing behind a map-sign. With the hot press paper, paint tends to dry fast and you see the brush strokes more than with cold press. All you need is grey, green, brown, and blue, that's Montreal!

Namur Station Orange Line metro, 5 x 7" hot press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2672)