Charlevoix Metro Station, green line, Southwest borough, Verdun Day 1

I had just completed the work at Lasalle Station, and I had to decide if I would go for the next station with the humidex soaring. (I'm not the kind of person who was built for heat!) I had checked google satellite map and saw the overhead of Charlevoix station it looked small with two little parks next to it. One park was private, the other one, you see in the painting is part of the station. The station as it is, looks a little like a prison block surrounded by a tall barbed fence so I emphasized the path, the tree, and the nice garden to the right to create an otherwise pleasant scene. People there were looking on with curiosity, and one fellow using his phone on the path shouted over and asked if he was in my way! Like, he was offering to move if he was in my way. Sometime when I was doing this painting it occurred to me that this whole project was right. Since a few times I wondered why I was hauling my bike all over Verdun at 6AM but since the beginning I wanted people to see an artist painting their neighborhood. As I write this blog, it also occurred to me that one day I would like to show these paintings in the neighborhood I think that would be cool. Like the Greatful Dead sang in Ripple, 'Let there be songs to fill the air'. 8 x10" cold press, watercolour, June 2020

There wasn't much to pick from on this location so I went for a side view where I could sit in the shade, I was tucked in away from the sidewalk in front of a store that was closed due to the lockdown, I could just see the scene between a taxi and a minivan. (That was a sentence I never thought I would write before). In a painting like this, that relies mostly on architecture, I wanted to pull out a few feature elements, mostly the nice flowers in the garden box which were a mix of brown eyed susans, some kind of magenta flowers, and some white-leaved plants that I wasn't able to capture very well. The rest of the elements complete the scene, and the reflection in the large windows gives it some depth. At this point I waved the flag and headed home, it was pushing 10AM with humidex up around 35. I might swing by this location one more time for a third painting and a sketch, I would like to try getting the interesting plants. Indeed, I went back and posted a day 2 Charlevoix blog in this link.

8 x10" cold press, watercolour, June 2020