The Hippodrome was a horse racing track with a large grandstand that would have blocked this entire view. The road is in severe disrepair, you can see the patchwork of craters and piles of asphalt. Cars were slowing down a lot here, probably not to watch me paint but to avoid the pot holes. Artistically the road was a lot of fun to paint, the greys varied from cool to warm, and the textures were a challenge to reproduce. There was also a large 3 meter heavy fencing on the divider blocks but I edited the fence out so as not to cover the view of the field and skyline.
View of Old Hippodrome, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, May 2022 (No. 3108a)
A pedestrian and bike path goes under the autoroute 40 giving access to the north part of the island, technically this an area called Bois-Franc. A sprawling warehouse greets you, it is painted in a bright green with orange, yellow and purple trim. The bricks are painted cream white. Complementing the gaudy colours are a bright red fire hydrant and bright yellow dandelions. It was a daunting scene to paint, not much room for error. The orange was a mix of benzi orange (PO62) and pyrol red (PR254). The green was phthalo green (PG7) with a daub of yellow ochre (PY43). The fire hydrant of course was pyrol red, with perylene maroon (PR179) for shadows.
Colourful warehouse, watercolour 8 x 10" Strathmore aquarius ii, May 2022 (No. 3014a)
On the way back I stopped off at Confederation park where I found the swimming pool still empty since 2020. It was looking worse for wear, I hope they can maintain it and start using it again for the public to swim. The blue was mainly done with phthalo blue (PB15) and phthalo green (PG7). The dark blue shadow was indo blue (PB60). I was running on fumes here but managed to eke out a decent painting.
Blue pool and umbrella, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, May 2022 (No. 3109a)
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