One Less Secret, one Less Shadow

 As an artist, when you see something worth painting you have to paint it. Last year I discovered a secret place, away from the crowd it was a pristine hillside populated with a variety of wildflowers, burr plants, insects, birds, and butterflies. With the Turcot work, access was fenced off, and today my worst suspicions came true. In the painting, I am standing where the hillside used to be, all that remains is a steep slope of clay devoid of life, a moonscape. Their beloved condo development right next to the highway can be seen in the left of the picture, and a surviving shrub on the top right. The only possible silver lining is that this is part of the promised forested park path. I guess you cant let nature get in the way of making green spaces. I had a tear in my eye painting this one. As you can tell from the painting, there was another name I had in mind, but renamed it for the blog...

One Less Secret, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2691)

In case you missed the link here is what it looked like last year, as seen from above. I was very careful when I made this painting not to trample the natural growth... 

 To clear my head a little I rode down the Maisonneuve bike path, and came across the location where I painted a tree on Benny Av, way back in 2019. It looked like an old tree, covered in moss, so it probably was on its last legs anyways. A lot of trees were lost in Montreal due to the invasive worms, I did a painting called one less shadow the other day, since trees provide shade, oxygen, habitat and painting subjects. The old tree was gone, just a stump remained. There was a massive thunderstorm brewing which contributed to the atmosphere and hastened my painting speed. Luckily I finished and rode home in some mild rain before it really came down. Together with the other painting of a tree stump, this makes 2 less shadows. The school where this is located was actually planting a bunch of new stuff, so the wheel keeps turning.

 2 Less Shadows, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, June 2021 (No. 2692)