Into Ville-Marie the downtown core of Montreal I go! It's a location I have painted before,
Cabot Square, a multi ethnic community hangout that boasts every culture on one corner. I hope it stays that way, they have nearly completed 3 or 4 giant condo-apartment buildings and the whole neighborhood is slowly gentrifying which means glass buildings and coffee shops. Montreal in general does a poor job protecting the neighborhoods from this effect, people who have lived in an area their whole life can get evicted, and shop owners cleared out and replaced with high rent types of businesses. Parc-Extension, Griffon town, Verdun, are all transforming, even my neighborhood of NDG has soaring property values and less accessible housing. Our mayor Valorie Plante has recognized this and is pushing to have affordable family housing, and affordable rent, as part of all development projects. The developers prefer small units to pack as many in, and to sell at highest price.
I didn't mean to write another opinionated blog, but painting in the city puts the social issues front and center. You wouldn't get the same impression working from photographs or google earth. Turns out I wasn't the only one with the idea to use google earth to make paintings, Liz Steel who is a professional watercolour artist and blogger, recently did a virtual painting trip to Italy and apparently had students 'with' her. I abandoned the idea after reading the google earth copyright section, they encourage using their resource for making artwork, but remind the artist that all materials are copyrighted by google or the person who uploaded it.
Okay... the painting in this blog shows one of the entrances to Atwater station, but the entrance is sealed shut! I saw half a dozen people try to get in while I was doing the painting. It was overcast, nearly raining, and the whole scene was pretty much monochrome except for the tree, flowers and a few other details. The tree ended up looking like
Dream Tree, which was not intended, but pretty cool. For now I am trying to paint what I see, but at some stage I plan to use more interpretive styles as I get used to the new paints and mixes. 7 x 10" cold press, watercolour, June 2020
Going towards the corner (Atwater x Sherbrooke) this scene is looking westwards with the metro sign prominent, and the metro building just catching the left part of the design. I wanted to show the station 'buried' in the city. A bus is making its turn. I got the outline of the bus done while the light was red, then filled in the colours later by looking at another bus that was parked nearby. I omit most people from these paintings, here I just suggested a few on the sidewalk across the street. I may try putting more people in, but it plays havoc on a small painting like this. 7 x 10" cold press, watercolour, June 2020
The last painting on the location was the entrance on de Maisonneuve Boulevard which is integrated with Dawson College. The sign and station building which is separate from the college can be seen behind the construction barriers and tangle of construction signs. It was ironic that the metro sign pointed down, but the direction sign pointed right. Using artistic license I made the other signs point in all directions, and signed off in a rare orange PJD, bottom left. One of the passer-by's laughed and said I should put more orange in the painting. 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2020
The next day, I returned to the location to make a sketch. There were a few elements from the second painting that I left out for simplicity, and wanted to capture. Also, I forgot my pencil on the first day. Pencil in hand, I sketched out the same scene minus the bus, getting in the fancy lamp post, more of the station, and better perspective on the background elements. I also took a digital photo of the scene. 8 x 10" pencil, sketchbook, June 2020
In August I returned to Atwater because on my many trips past it, I had noticed another entrance to the station that was quite different then the main entrances, it was in large Westmount office towers. The sign is reflected in the glass walls. I am sitting right next to a staircase going down into underground shopping and a metro entrance, not depicted. 6.5 x 7" cold press, watercolour. August 2020
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