Place des Arts, Metro Station, green line, Ville-Marie

After being interrupted once I went to the next station Place des Arts and parked my bike, only to be told by a security guard that no bikes were allowed to lean against the building, please move to the bike rack on the sidewalk! Nothing seemed to be going right on this painting trip. The angle was just as good though, this shows the side of one of the many entrances to the station, in the background is some sort of fancy building they built as part of the Place des Arts development. I didn't even know what I was looking at until I got up to leave. The building in the background has an underhang covered in orange cladding, so the shape of the structure is like an abstract cube. The spheres are an art installation. At least the foreground elements were more straightforward, I had fun mixing all the different greys. 8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, July 2020

With the sun coming up and a cool breeze my mood improved. The main Place des Arts square had plenty of good places to sit, it is where they hold the Jazz festival concerts (not this year!) and other special events. The granite building in the middle ground with the greenhouse structure on top is the metro entrance. The little shape in the immediate foregound is one of the stone benches of the main square where I was sitting. The monstrosity in the background is University of Quebec and Montreal, which was depicted with a neutralized yellow ochre. I tried to find an angle without it in the background but in the end I gave up and included it. Luckily there was a little tree on the corner. This was the first painting were I really used the new quinacridone purple (PV55) it was incredible for making all the purple shadows. I even signed my name in it. What a paint. 8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, July 2020

The last scene was ambitious to begin with, a jigsaw puzzle of buildings, and then a bus stopped. It was the famous #80 bus that goes up through the mile end, a bus I have taken many times. My brain was saying 'please, please do not try to include the bus.' but my brush was saying 'include the bus'. By now I was quite warmed up (both literally and figuratively) and managed to nail the bus, although some of the other building may be a little off. The dreadful UQAM building on the top left looks like a poorly made cake! Anyways, I love this painting, it really captures the immersive quality of the location. I had a great place to sit too, full shade and some grass even. An artist came up and talked to me about colours for awhile which was neat. Since the scenes were so massive, all three paintings were on the larger format. 8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, July 2020

At the last spot, I did a sketch of the back side of the metro entrance seen in the second painting, where there is an art deco park and the unique curved lamp posts of the Jazz festival. It would have made a great painting but there was full sun blasting down, and I could only find a small shadow to stand in while I completed the sketch. After this I headed back to the Hudson's Bay location to finish McGill, then stopped off at Westmount park on the way back to paint in relative peace and quiet at Westmount park. At home I cleaned the palette and got more paper ready for the next day. Including sketches, there were 11 works, it felt great to be an artist for a day. 8 x 11 sketchbook, pencil, July 2020