Gas Station #19, St. Laurent Blvd, Little Italy, Montreal

Gas stations are seldom thought of as artistic subjects although there are some notable exceptions such as the painting called "Gas, 1940", by Edward Hopper an American oil painter. He captured the nostalgia of a vintage gas station at twilight, with an eerie loneliness under artificial lights. Recently I discovered Hiroshige, the Japanese master print designer from the 19th century. His work along with other prints were collected by the French impressionist painters including Monet, who appreciated the excellent compositions and colours of the work, hanging them in his drawing room at Giverny where the prints still hang. So I had this idea to work on a series of paintings based on "19 Odd Gas Stations of Montreal" inspired by Hiroshige's famous series called "The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō". In fact there are a lot more than 19 gas stations in Montreal but I wanted to aim for something doable in one year. Gas station # 1 was the gas station across my street, and #2 was the one by the NDG Canadian Tire. I skipped the naming to #19 for this one because it is all the way across Montreal in Little Italy, so maybe it is the last in the series geographically. 

Gas Station #19 features a Petro Canada landscaped with shrubberies and an emotive tree hanging onto its leaves- one of the branches leans down to use the gas pump! Integrated with the background, the gas station blends with a church making it look like the stained glass windows and spires are part of the petrol pump. Bitter cold wind and a blue sky frame the scene.

5 x 7" rough press (block), watercolour December 2019

Hiroshige's Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake, Japan

"Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake" is the name of a famous wood block print by the artist Hiroshige from the 19th century. It was made more famous by Vincent Van Gogh who made a copy of it using oil paints. Woodblock printing is an ancient method of mass producing artwork and stenciled fabrics. In 19th century Japan, woodblock prints were extremely popular among tourists and the growing middle-class. Hiroshige designed around 5000 pictures. His did the drawing and composition for a publisher, who would then send it to a copyist, a woodblock cutter, a printer, and finally distributor. The team could print up to 10,000 copies of each picture!

Lately I have been working a lot on drawing skills using a book called The complete Guide to Figure Drawing for Comics and Graphic Novels by Daniel Cooney, and by copying Hiroshige pictures using pencil. This painting was the first time I tried to copy a Hiroshige print, of course I had to pick the one Van Gogh copied. I measured out the proportions and carefully made a pencil drawing on hot press 140 lbs watercolour paper. I was surprised how much detail there was in such small spaces, and how rich the colours really are in the print. Painting the streaks of rain took some courage, after painstaking work I had to deface the picture with lines of gray paint! I signed my initials, and my impression of Hiroshige's signature in the top right.


This image is 24 x 16 cm, the paper about 2.5cm wider and 2cm longer around the margins.(The original print is listed at 37cm x 25cm)