Saturday Painting Trip, to the North

 

Riding to the North is tricky in Montreal, there is no obvious route from NDG up to the North shore at the moment. The city plans to build a connecting path for walking and cycling that would run up the west part of NDG crossing the tracks and highway. For now the route is via the Decarie Mall, and past the old Hippodrome horse racing and Ultimate frisbee pitch. Yes I used to play Ultimate in the beleaguered field you see in the painting, although the hippodrome is completely bulldozed. One piece of good news, I saw hundreds of trees ready to plant, hopefully that means they are planting a park or forest here. You see Mount Royal (M2!) in the background, and the nature returning in the mid and foreground.

Old Hippodrome site, 5 x 8" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2633a)

 

As I continued Northwards I saw this tree very close to where I had done the previous painting, and a good spot to sit on a concrete block. I wanted to write down the colours I used because it came out looking really fresh like spring. 

 The colour of the tree foliage was a yellow-chartreuse that I made using the new leaf green (PY154+PG7), umber (PBr7), and hints of orange (PO36) and green (PG36). The branches were with raw umber (PBr7) and indo blue (PB60) with some red ochre (PR101) for the twigs. The shadow was bone black (PBk9) and perylene green (PBk31) mostly. For the sky PB15, for clouds venetian red/indo blue. Finally, the dandelions were yellow (PY154) and yellow-orange (PY110). It may sound like a lot of colours, but I actually removed a bunch from the palette to simplify things a little.

 Lemon and Lime Tree, 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2630b)

 

As I rode northwards the north shore and Prairie River seemed close, but the wind was fierce and sun going down. So I stopped at Lufa farms, the place where we get all our vegetables delivered from. You can see the rooftop greenhouses and delivery trucks. I had to sandwich the trees and side of the massive building into the composition. The tree by the way was perylene black with bone black, they turned out great, with a deep green pine look which contrasts all the shadow greys. Last year I made it out a bit earlier and painted Lufa from about the same vantage point. This bike ride is only possible in good weather.

Lufa Farms with Pine Trees. 8 x 10" cold press, watercolour, May 2021 (No. 2655b)