Parc Sation, Blue Line Metro

A short walk from De Castelnau, is Parc Station which used to be a the grand old train station. In the 1950's it was abandoned, then assimilated into the metro system as another stop along the blue line. There is a large open space in front of the station that provided a nice place to sit and great sight lines. I also had the full winter sun beaming down on me which provided some extra warmth. With the daunting structure I opted for an impressionism style, to capture a moment in time if you will. The sheer number of pigeons was what really impressed me. A few times, they all took off and flew around in a roar, then landed back atop the building. I let the ochre paint bleed a bit into the sky to remember the roar of the pigeons as they launched off the building. Once before, pigeons at Jarry station, took off as I was painting. 

Parc Sation Blue Line, Pigeon Roost, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2021 (No. 2957)

 

There was a stark contrast in the sunlit upper portions of the building and the shadowed ground floor elements. I chose this scene because it had a bit of nature remaining in the snow-covered garden. All the plants were dried out or hibernating, but they still provided some colour and contrast. At Parc station there were quite a few interesting characters hanging about, and a lot of people going to and fro the buses. By the way, the shadowed wall was yellow ochre (PY43) a touch of burnt ochre (PR102) and carbon black (PBk6). I was using my winter palette v1 today.

Parc Sation Blue Line, Side View, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2021 (No. 2935)

 

In the back of the station they built a dull green pyramid which is actually a skylight for the station below, but the windows are on the south face of the pyramid you can't see. There were more details on the pyramid but I left it like this for two reasons, one, the paint would not dry fast enough, two, it looked like some kind of monolith like from the movie called 2001: a Space Odyssey. One of the interesting people at the station was walking around yelling something about space trucking in the cosmos, he seemed adamant about the idea. At the same time a plane flew over the scene, and I figured, why not?

Parc Sation Blue Line, Space Trucking, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2021 (No. 2936)