Sundown on Harley Street

After work I rode down to Harley street to pick up some bread at Snowdon Bakery, and made these paintings as the sun went down. On the right is the City Fruterie gorcer, and the street is Harley street. Turning right at the end would bring you to the train tracks and then up into the main part of NDG. The local community center made planters and benches as you see in the bottom right of the painting. As usual there was a row of cars, and a constant clang clang clang noise from the commuter train crossing.

Sundown on Harley Street, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Turning to leave I saw two black pleather chairs in the field and decided to give it a go. There was only room in the painting for one chair, and I composed it with the commuter train in the background and a strong, central tree element to anchor the composition. The tree colours were made to be very tye-dye style with yellow, orange, magenta, green and blue. Its a bizarre painting, almost surreal despite the fact that it was done on location!

Pleather chair in field, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Surely two paintings was enough, but when I turned to go, the massive flood lights at Raffi auto turned on, creating an eerie glow against the colourful sky. Its one of those paintings where there is no formula, no strategy per say, you just paint it and hope for the best. It turned out to be very dramatic indeed. By now it was nearly dark and time to go home. Actually the weather was so mild I could do these without gloves on.

Raffi lights on at sundown, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Galactic Lecture

It looks like a galactic string theory, or a pizza pie in the sky. Since I have been lecturing a lot lately, its mostly meant to depict a galactic lecture. The magnifying glass on the right is odd in that one would use a telescope to see the starts, but this scene is showing the interior of a mitochondria with the electron transport chain and proton pump. To paint the star field I used neutral tint, a Winsor and Newton paint made from carbon black (PBk6) blue-green (PG7) and magenta (PV19). Perhaps when the lectures are over I can return to the galaxy and do a few abstract paintings. With the weather as it is, the snow flakes are just as they are in the painting, a figment of our imagination, or stars in the galaxy. Class dismissed.

Galactic Lecture, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, November 2024

Farine Five roses (Malt Factory) and area

 

For some reason these paintings did not seem to make it to the blog, they should have appeared right around the end of September. Anyways, it gives me something to write about. These scenes were done along the bike path that goes by the Farine Five roses sign on top of the Malt Factory, just after I completed the painting of geese flying out of Peel Basin. If this weather continues, the geese are probably going to come back early! Instead of trying to paint the whole sign I just did the last few letters by outlining them with the blue sky, then filling in the block letter with red paint. The facade is very complex, there are lots of windows and layers. 

Partial Farine Five Roses sign and silos, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024

 

In the background is one of the gantry cranes of the active part of the port, and the malt factory in the foreground. Its main purpose is to make malted barley for brewing beer at the Molson Brewery down the river. Viewing the malt factory is overwhelming, so I just painted it in pieces, this one showing some of the buildings off to the side.

Gantry crane factory shadow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024

 

This old Machine shop is in st Henri, the words machine stop are still visibly stenciled onto the brick. Inside, it may well be a machine shop, but I think it is condos inside. All of the bike paths were redone in ville st Henri and Point st Charles making it a pleasure to ride around especially on a warm September summer day.

Machine Shop, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4048b)

 

A few more lost and found paintings: buildings

Here are a few more lost and found paintings, they had been scanned but never made it to the blog for whatever reason. In this scene, the rain clouds were enveloping the top of the skyscraper. I tried to capture the effect with a wet-in-wet technique. Later on the same day I painted a similar scene down by the train bridge.

Soggy day in Westmount, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, Summer 2024 (No. 4008b)

This was the first attempt at painting Montreal through the trees from Mount Royal looking south. The city buildings did not show very well but you can kind of get the idea that there are buildings behind the trees. Shortly after, I did a second version.

Montreal through the trees v1, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4016b)

 

I must have blogged about this one, but could not seem to find it anywhere. It was done down by the Lachine canal some time in late August, looking up at the old Malt silos. Painting rust is always fun.

Industrial 101, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4026b)

 

I did this one on the way back from a painting trip downtown, it shows boats in the water, with the Science Center in the background and a condo on the right. It may have been the same trip as when I did the touristy scene.

Boats in Old Port, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4039b)

This was the first one I did during the house music festival down in peel basin, the sun was setting which created a warm glow on the clouds. After painting these Majestic Condos, I knew how many stories there were, but still had trouble getting it right. No matter, the greys glow, and the tinted windows play well off the cyan sky. Updating the catalogue has been a real chore this time, it is well over 5000 paintings now and I still have a large stack of about a hundred 6 x 7.5" paintings.

Condos cloud glow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4039b)

Sunshine over Point st Charles and other scenes

After painting another dépanneur in Point st Charles I turned to see this incredible view down the street. Its the corner of Charlevoix and Knox, looking west along Knox. I liked the way the trees on the left were reaching up towards the sun, and how the classic architecture reflected the sunbeams on their bricks. Painting into the sun is never advisable, I had polarized sunglasses on, and my bike visor blocked the sun, which was much higher in the sky in real life. There were a few more scenes around here I might like to do if it ever snows, as you can see in the painting it was just like spring today. 

Sunshine over Point st Charles, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

 

Here is the dépanneur painting it is a Provi-Soir brand, with an interesting facade. The red brick building in the background is typical for the area. Holding together the composition is a prominent tree sweeping upwards. Sometimes I use yellow ochre to over-paint the tree branches on the sky, which works reasonably well even if it breaks a few watercolour 'rules'. I wrote a blog about it once, where I broke all the rules possible to make a painting, and then waited for the watercolour police to show up, but that never happened.

Beau-Soir Provi-Soir on Charlevoix, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

 

Part of the old train yard has been bought by the city and they are developing it into a community project, a kind of hipster haven perhaps. This old building, probably where the engineers used to fix trains, has been converted into little shops, a community garden, and a few other projects in the works. There were a lot of people here working on the gardens, playing in a park area, and generally enjoying the space. One fellow liked my painting and said in French that he also does watercolours.

Point st Charles development, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

 

Lastly, there was an old rusty train bridge that had been spray painted with black and white graffiti with green highlights. The colours and textures were incredible so I made a quick painting of it, along with some of the surrounding elements. The street going underneath is Wellington, which stretches from downtown Montreal all the way to Verdun.

Train bridge over Wellington st, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Train yard perspectives (seven trains)

 

Standing by my bike at the top of the Point st Charles train yard view point, I made this painting looking south along the train tracks where they park the commuter trains. These would be the same ones I paint from time to time during the week as they go to west island and back. I painted the outline of the trains first, then filled in the pale gravel colour and worked on the background elements. When the outlines were about dry I dropped int he train texturing and details, then completed the grassy embankment. The fun part, finally was painting the tracks using a mix of red ochre (PR101) and orange (PO62) and probably some yellow ochre (PY43). Getting the train shapes and volume took some extra fiddling around, then the painting was done. The elevated train went by in the background near the end so I added it real quick, making it a total of seven trains in this painting.

Train yard perspectives (seven trains), watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Montreal Rectangles (view from train yard)

At the end of Point st Charles, there is a shipping container depot and train yard. Today I found a viewing platform they built...a walking pathway on a hill overlooking the train yard that offered this vantage point of Montreal and the shipping containers. The other day on my blog, I was lamenting the fact that these shipping containers are hard to paint. Today I took an abstract approach, just varying the containers as squares or rectangles, filling them in with a variety of colours, and adding a few shadows here and there for a touch of realism. It was more like doing a palette cleanser abstract! The rest of the scene is sandwiched by the Montreal skyline and the rail yard in blues and browns. It worked out really well, and its safe to say I finally got a decent painting done of the shipping containers.

Montreal Rectangles, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, November 2024