Motel Normandie scenery, final thoughts on trip

Cilei and I stayed at a Motel outside of Louiseville for the weekend trip which you can see in the painting. The owner had seen me painting around, and came over to talk a bit, turns out he and his wife bought the Motel in the 1990's from the original owners who built it in the 1970's. It was a decent enough place for the price, and the highway was not too noisy at night, although the train was thunderous. I scanned and updated the previous blogs from our trip, with additional comments and corrections. 

Moteal Normandie sign, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

The view out the back was very relaxing, there were views of soybean fields and corn fields, with some neat blue pine trees reminiscent of Van Gogh's Cyprus trees from southern France. Turns out you can skip the trip to southern France and go to Louiseville Quebec instead. Louise is the name of a royal dignitary who was part of the British colonial times, one of the main roads is King road. So the architecture had a mix of Anglo and Franco themes, and the locals we talked to at the businesses were bilingual. The bakery Le Pain Griffé was incredible, great baguette and even better smoked salmon sandwich. Unfortunately they closed Sunday which precluded our plans to buy the local confectionery they had for sale. In the foreground of the painting you see a composter... that was a nice touch we could compost our banana peels, apple cores and coffee grinds. 

Fields and tree, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

Here is the same scene on a horizontal format. Van Gogh had landscapes with dramatic undulations and mountains in the background, while here it was laser-beam flat until you got up to the hiking trails in st Ursule. Another neat spot was the adjacent town, Yamachiche, which had a UNESCO certified wetlands on the embankments of lake st Pierre. Long boardwalks took us all the way to the waterfront where we saw an endless expanse of reeds. Signs along the way showed all the different kinds of birds that were supposes to live there but we did not see any. All in all, this trip was a life-changing, immersive journey into the cultural melting-pot of lower Quebec, and we savoured the mouth-watering street food including a notable smoked-salmon sandwich and locally made jams. I might be exaggerating a little, but it was indeed a good weekend getaway a stones-throw, and a few highways, to the north of Montreal. 

Fields and trees, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025 

Trois-Rivières Laviolette Bridge

From the vantage point of Parc Hector-Langevin in Trois-Rivières there was a good view of the Laviolette Bridge that crosses the st Lawrence river. The park we were standing in had some wonderful installments made in collaboration with the local indigenous peoples. There was a neat sculpture with a feather on top, fire in the middle, and roots on the bottom, symbolizing the interactions between the colonials and the indigenous. Other works of art included carved marble, stained glass imagery and flower gardens. Most of Trois-Rivières downtown had public areas that were thoughtful land well done, although the poverty was also evident. The city struggled from the get go as a port-town, and then had various ups and downs as the port business dissipated. There was a pylon in the scene too which made me feel at home. 

Laviolette Bridge,watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

Motel Normandie Garden

Motel Normandie has land around it with composting, a picnic table, seats behind the rooms outside, and a large vegetable garden with grape vines. I stood in the shade of the grape vines and got an up-close view. The owner and operator lives on the premise so he's always here for customers, and him and his wife live off the land to an extent. It took awhile to do this, reminiscent of the grapes of Tuscany painting I did 25 years ago but that one was bigger and took a month. I started this painting by doing the outlines of the grapes and vegetables with their local colours. Then I filled in the complicated background with earthy green tones, followed by yellow overlays with bismuth vanadate yellow (PY184). You can see my initials on the blue water collector, that is the bismuth yellow over top of blue. Then I filled in the grapes and vegetables with sun highlights and shadows, with additional details on the vines, pine trees, and earth. 

Grapes and vegetable garden, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

Chute de St. Ursule, sunflowers

The park Chute de st Ursule has a nice hiking path with views of a river. Here, we stood on a narrow bridge and you see the tips of my shoes, looking down. The water chute was blasting down and spraying upwards. It has carved a deep gorge in the black and brown rocks. There was a guard railing with mesh that I omitted from the painting to create drama. 

 

Down the chute, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

At the end of the park the river makes a sharp turn creating a rocky peninsula. There was a picnic bench in the shade, surrounded by river and great views. It was the best picnic locale in the world I think. We ate artisinal sandwiches we bought earlier in the morning in Louisville. The river is called the Maskinongé, which is an indigenous word that translates into running water, or water-source, something like that. The information center at the park mentioned the colonial history of the region but not the indigenous history. I found little information on the internet either. 

Boulder sparkling river watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

Driving east then south along picturesque highways surrounded by rolling farmland we arrived at Passion Lavandre a ritzy tourist trap for fancy cyclists and city folk on weekend road trips. We picked up some fragrant items and drank espresso and cappuccino sitting next to lavender fields. The coffee tastes better with the aroma of lavender in the breeze. Like a spring fawn dancing across a sun-kissed meadow as Dad would say. I made a painting of the end of season sunflowers, they were all drooping and pointing south. 

Drooping sunflowers, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

Morning sun chicken farm

The morning sun was beaming through the clouds over a farm on Louiseville Quebec. Since I played the game Egg Inc. on my smartphone, these building resemble a chicken farm, but could be related to the adjacent soybean and corn fields. At any rate the morning sun was beaming through the clouds and illuminating the structures and the fields. 

Morning sun over fields, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

Louiseville Quebec

We did a weekend tour of Louisville Quebec in the Mauricie region about 2 hours driving north, about half of that time spent on the Decarie Expressway or so it seemed. The town is Highway 138 which runs parallel to Highway 40, a bit further east and there is Lake st Pierre, which is just a widening of the st Lawrence river. This view was right out back of the Motel, in the foreground are what appears to be end-of-season soybean plants, and corn in the background. That tree-line on the horizon is running along side of Highway 40 (the Trans-Canada highway).

Soybean and corn fields, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025

I made a few blogs while at the Motel, they will be updated with better photos and scans... this photo shows the actual scene. Walking up to the front of that garage building gave an unobstructed view of the fields.  

Moon over Atwater station

Zooming down Lansdowne avenue bike path from Westmount, I noticed a 3/4 full moon clear and bright in the sky through the trees and over the expensive houses. They may have expensive houses but the roads sure are crap, some of the bumpiest nastiest roads you can ride on, but then again everyone there seemed to have an SUV four wheeler! At any rate, I kept heading south then east along Maisonneuve looking for an opening to paint the moon, finally arriving at Atwater station I set up on the Atwater street divider which had strong white LED lights although there was a surprising amount of traffic for the hour I was out. Can't a painter find some peace and quiet? The moon was just rising up above one of the condos, and was framed nicely by a large tower on the right, and the Atwater metro sign illuminated in the center. The rest of the painting was a patchwork of light and dark, yellow and brown, bright and dim. Night painting is all about the contrasts which makes it interesting as an artist and interesting to look at.  

Moon over Atwater station, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2025