Looking for places to put my initials

 

Here is the old Théâtre Cartier in st Henri, it sat unused and covered in graffiti for many year until this year, it was bought by a new owner who wants to relaunch it as the Theater Colas. I think it will do well, since the neighborhood is picking up and its a very popular place to live and to dine. If its up and running next year I would like to go. Next time hopefully there will people in a line up going to see a show! The Marquees on the theater was blank, so I decided to fill in my initials and the year 24. Today obviously was the last day I will initial paintings 24. Next year I may go with 25, or initial as PJDART42 my social media tag. The reason I put the year is to remember when I did them, in the old days I lost track, although that was before the blog.

Old Théâtre Cartier, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, December 2024

 

This is the train bridge going over Notre Dame in st Henri, they dug the road under it so as to allow unfettered traffic, something they aught to do in NDG more often. The actual tag on the bridge was MONET, who is a graffiti "artist" in Montreal,  but all they can do is put big ugly block letters on things not very impressive considering their namesake. I took the liberty to put my initials instead.

Train bridge setting sun, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

 

This old building had about 2/3 of it renovated to be a modern commercial shop. On the bottom it looked like a spaceship, on the top it was vintage Montreal. It was a lot harder than I thought to do this painting, normally I stay away from architectural subjects but the sun was just perfect and the new sidewalk in st Henri gives plenty of space to set up my bike/studio.

Old and new building, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

 

Good way to end off the blog for the year perhaps, this is a painting of the Bar Notre Dame sign, which seems like a contradiction in terms. To get the graphic design to pop, I started with a pale yellow rectangle and let it completely dry before overlaying the bar font with ferrari red (PR255) and outlining the beer mug in carbon black (PBk6). The yellow beer was just yellow ochre (PY43) with benzi yello (PY154). With the rest of the painting in a slight blur, it gives the sense of a photograph almost. Funny enough, I could not see at all where the bar was, maybe it was closed and they just left the sign up. Cheers!

Bar Notre Dame, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024 

Some remaining piles of snow, near place st Henri

Looking for some snow to paint I found these remaining piles in the parking lot behind the Place st-Henri metro station. Behind this scene there used to be trees and scrub brush, but the city came by recently and cut it all down. The likely reason was that homeless people had set up tent encampments in the brush, in fact there were still a few old tents piled up along the fence. A train went by, up on the embankment behind the trees which I tried to sketch in with the paint. Painting piles of snow involves wet-in-wet, then when its dry, some dry-brush texture on top. That gives the softness of snow, with the gritty look of dirt and mud.

Snow piles with train, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

 

Here is the same scene on the horizontal. Today I had three drying racks with me, one for 5 x 7", one for 6 x 7.5" and one for 8x10". This allowed me to do one painting, then quickly go to the next one while the first one dried. Since it was only +4℃ today there was no trouble with the painting, and I could dress with moderate insulation. It felt more like early April than late December. The wash used for the snow pile was a three hue wash, that is, pale yellow transition to light violet, then a light blue. I left a sliver of white at the top for a glow-effect. Getting three hues to blend together seamlessly is a challenging technique, one has to avoid backwash or hard edges.

Snow pile parking lot, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

BBQ Chicken Tree

Who wouldn't want a barbecue chicken tree? The raccoons would love it! Up on Cote st Luc there are a few local restaurants selling chicken and pizza all year around. Yesterday I went up there, not for the chicken but for the painting opportunities. In fact there were several good scenes I could have done, so its worth heading back some time in the new year (tomorrow). A lot of this painting is about values, the sky has to be slightly darker than the pale yellow bricks, and the red of the lettering has to be lighter than the black background. Finally, the tree gets painted over top of the scene using earth brown (PBr7) and some carbon black (PBk6) and yellow ochre (PY43) on the top branches. Its always interesting to paint a tree over top of a finished painting, you hope the background is dry enough, and that the composition works out. 

BBQ Chicken tree, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Painting Year in Review: 2024

At last, we have nearly reached the end of 2024, and its time once again for the year in review blog where I select some of the best and favorite paintings (yours and mine) of the year. You can find the previous years in review for 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 in the links. Since there were a lot more paintings this year, over 800, the blog will be a bit longer, in fact it was tough to narrow it down to just a dozen paintings to feature. Seen above, is one of the best paintings of the year because it truly captures a moment, and an artist, with a simple cloud over Trenholme park. It was proverbial lightning in a bottle.  

There had to be a painting of the famous autoshop in the year in review blog. Its across the street from where we live, and I paint it frequently due to the convenience of its location. This one shows the eerie lights, and the snowflakes you see are actual snow flakes hitting the moist paper during painting. Snowy Night Autoshop is definitely a Montreal painting! Some other great night paintings were Pharmacy on a Wet Night, the recent Skating Rink on a Snowy Night, and the chilly Dagwood's Restaurant at Night. My blog has a page for tips on painting at night.

 

The World Inspired Landscapes series continued this year, I just recently reached Q with the Qatar painting. In this series, I research countries in books and on the internet, then come up with an original design to represent the landscape. Above, is Malawi, a country in the middle of Africa known for its coffee beans. I have a colleague from Malawai and we often talked about his country. Part of the country was settled by protestants, and the locals took up the religion, even naming a city Blantyre after the famous religious figure. My blog has two pages summarizing countries starting with the letters A - L, and L - Z.

 

 

Most of the paintings this year involved me riding my bike around Montreal. This way I can cover a lot of ground, quickly stop, set up, and do a painting on the spot. Above, is a row of Majestic Condos, down near the Peel Basin where Griffintown ends and Old Port begins. A tram car went by as I painted. Lots of people saw me paint this one, and the blog actually got 99 views which is a high number for me. Other neat paintings of condos and tall buildings included Tall Trees Last Sun, the iconic Sunflowers in the City, and Foggy Buildings with Train Bridge. 

 

We had an unusually long and mild autumn this year, which was good for painting even if it is a bad sign for the environment. This painting shows lemon and lime coloured trees along McGill Avenue downtown. A few other cool Autumn paintings were Bike Path Under Train Bridge, Orange Tree with Sunset, and the realistic Dark Green Tree on Campus. 

 

Here is the surprise success painting of the year, a very dreary scene of a Plane over Power Station. Despite the challenging subject matter and high humidity, a tight composition and lemony colour scheme really pulled it together to capture a sombre moment out in the middle of nowhere in Montreal. If you follow my art, you know I like quirky, pedestrian scenes like this. Some other personal favorites of mine this year were Yellow Bins Discarded Fruit, Sunset with Fire Truck, and the summer Spirit Birds?

 

 

Without a doubt this scene of Water Cascading under the Bridge, at the Lachine canal was the most technically proficient piece of the year. A deep violet shadow hangs over the rippling water highlighted by the sun, along with my own shadow silhouette on the bottom right, and whimsical initials floating on the bottom left. This was one of 17 paintings I completed in just one day, a record for me. Also technically impressive were Lock with Reflections, Setting Sun Through Trees, and Partially Frozen Canal. Obviously the Lachine Canal was a good place to paint this year, its essentially an outdoor studio! I drafted a book summarizing the Canal paintings, hopefully it will be available soon. 

If you had to guess which was the most viewed blog of the year, you may have picked this one. A scene of a Gull over Water North Rustico Beach PEI, had 141 reads... I am guessing someone from PEI spread the word that an artist was in town? Well, my ancestors are actually from the province and when Cilei and I visited this August, I ran into a few people who knew of the family lineage. Nice place to visit and paint. I also travelled to (or through) Toronto a few times, painted along the commuter corridor, and stayed up at a rental cottage on Lac de Coeur. 

 

I made abstract paintings throughout the year, usually under the premise of cleaning my palette. Although, this one was done with my alternative palette that contains many paints including the incredible carbazol violet, a deep purple. The painting is called Strange Trip, after the hippy folk rock band called the Grateful Dead. It seems to be one of Cilei's favorite paintings of the year. I completed a few large doodleism paintings where I transcribe lab book doodles from work into large surrealistic paintings, such as Lab Book #25 Eclipse Flowers. There was a quirky painting called Emergency Donuts based on a true story. 

 

Believe it or not, this painting was done on location in the exact moments that the total solar eclipse happened back in April. A more refined version was done shortly afterwards in my studio (aka kitchen table). It was a great year for painting the moon, for example Memory of Supermoon PEI, the Harvest Moon over Turcot Interchange, the cheeky Moon over Pizzeria, similarly the Full Moon over Pizza 88, the freezing Crescent Moon over Loyola Park, and the iconic Crescent Moon over Montreal. 

 

Mostly for gifts to graduating students, I made a few still life paintings of the laboratory including this one which shows a western blot apparatus (it measures proteins very specifically and directly). Another one showed a polymerase chain reaction thermal cycler (it measures ribonucleic acids, which is a way to see genes being turned on or off in human cells). And more down to earth, I painted my painting gear at home. I did a neat portrait painting of Cilei reading a magazine at the cottage. 

 

When selecting the best painting of the year there were many to pick from such as Cloud over Trenholme Park at the top of the blog, or the political painting of Encampments at McGill University, where students including from Concordia University were protesting the senseless violence in Gaza. There was a simple but effective painting of a train track outside of Boisé Steinberg, which is being fought over by developers and locals (as it turns out the city has bought and protected the small woodland). I also did a powerful scene of cold snow blowing through Coffee Park. But the painting I kept thinking about all year was one completed way back in January called Train Winter Blast. When I was painting it, shown above, I thought to myself, this is the kind of painting that 'Uncle Peter' would make... like if my nieces and nephews saw my paintings, they would expect something like this. It has technical accuracy, great brush work, and the watercolour is allowed to be spontaneous in the background. Luckily, the snow came down with just the right consistency which created the illusion of snowflakes on the painting. I thoroughly enjoyed painting so much this year, and hope to continue it into 2025 and beyond. Thanks for reading :)

 

 

 

World Inspired Landscapes: Qatar

 

Qatar is unique in being the only country starting with the letter Q, and it is one of the longest populated countries with evidence of stone-age habitation 50,000 years ago. The country is a small piece of land protruding from the Arabian peninsula, historically its was a major supplier of purple dye and precious pearls. In modern times it is a major energy producer in the form of oil, gas, and a growing solar power industry. Mostly flat desert, Qatar has an enormous capacity to develop solar power. Unfortunately it also means they are among the most water-stressed countries in the world. They get water from rainfall collection, from Saudi Arabia, and about half from desalinization. That is the process of removing salt from ocean water to make it drinkable. Desalinization takes enormous amounts of energy because salt does not like to be removed from water easily, and it also results in large volumes of salt as a byproduct. With water resources diminishing and seawater rising, desalinization will be required more for some countries to get fresh water. In Canada we have huge amounts of fresh water, in fact, Montreal is completely surrounded by it. 

The painting shown above is the third version I did, it features a flat tropical landscape with palm trees on a beach, along with towering skyscrapers silhouetted against a sunset. the colour scheme is 'primary' that is, blue, yellow red and green, with dark magenta in the buildings. Its neither warm, nor cool, rather, in the middle in terms of colour temperature.

World Inspired Landscapes: Qatar v3, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

 

Here is the second version, it has a streamlined composition compared to the first version (below), and I added the palm trees as an afterthought. I liked the idea of the palm trees and beach, but it was not very clear in this version. Also, the sunset looked weird, like a donut or something, so in the third and final version I enveloped the sun in a smooth colour transition, pushing the blue to the upper corners.

World Inspired Landscapes: Qatar v2

 

In the first version I established the general idea of a brilliant sunset with a rolling desert in the foreground. It looked thin, so I added the towering skyscrapers which really define much of the Qatar landscape based on the internet research. The design had potential, but the landscape was too undulating for a flat country, and the colours scheme was too brown all around since the purple mixed with the yellow ochre. In quick succession I did the other two versions making improvements with each iteration. The iterative method is to get an idea down, then figure out what are the strengths and weaknesses, then adapt accordingly to get to a final version you are satisfied with. Its more of a studio method, where you can go get a cup of coffee in between sessions. On location, I have to get it right the first time, although in some instances I will return to a location multiple times until I get it right. For example Chair in a Field of Yellow Buttercups, was done after several attempts on location.

World Inspired Landscapes: Qatar v1

Wet Somerled avenue, testing new rack

The rain never really stopped today, it turned the streets into a slushy mess! Looking west along Someled avenue with just a small overhang to protect the painting from the rain, I made this painting and tried to capture the headlights reflecting off the wet road. There is definitely a mushy Montreal in the winter feeling here, and we have more above zero temperatures ahead so all the snow will melt soon. I mainly wanted to test the new rack... my parents gave me some craft balsa wood, about 1/8 by 1/2 inch, which I measured, sawed and glued together into a simple 6 x 7.5" frame. This frame goes on top of the paper, which is sitting on a larger piece of firm cardboard. Two elastics hold the frame to the cardboard, creating a watercolour paper sandwich. A second piece of cardboard sits on top, which protects the surface when I put it in the shoulder bag. For location painting in winter or wet conditions this device is required to preserve the painting. When this painting was finished, the surface was moist and sopping wet, you can even see some rain specs on it, that's how wet it was. Without the rack, if I put the painting in my shoulder bag it would smear the painting. Of course, this is necessary because I am painting on location.. in a nice warm studio one can go make a cup of coffee and let the painting dry on the table in ideal conditions. 

Somerled wet, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Headlights dusk, reflecting off slushy road

 

It was all I could do, to paint some headlights reflecting off the slushy road at dusk across from the Dollarama. Getting the light effects on the road from the red traffic light and whiteish headlights took some wet-in-wet effects and careful control of the values. Just a few scraps of paper showing through gave the illusion of light set against an otherwise grey background. The real trick is getting the values correct on the background elements. The sky, snow and other details have to be from half-grey to full on charcoal black in order to scale the painting and create an illusion of light. Its an effect I have been working on for awhile, and today, although the subject matter is rather 'pedestrian' the feeling of a dusky wet Montreal late afternoon seems quite real.

Headlights dusk, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Morrisburg rest stop

Up and down the 401 highway there are On-route branded rest stops that have gas, restaurants, bathrooms, and some touristy shops. With holiday traffic I just stopped off quickly to stretch the legs, and in this case I made a quick painting while the sun was still shining. Walking around the structure nothing remarkable stood out, then I saw the sun shining from behind the green tinted glass. It seemed unlikely that I could capture the scene given the extremely cold and windy conditions, so I did the under-painting then carried on. At home I applied the dark elements like the grid on the glass wall, the roof, the background trees and car details and my initials. It turned out pretty well in the end, you really get the sense of the sun behind this tinted glass angled wall. There were a bunch of Bolton paintings too, I will post those on the blog soon. Meanwhile, there is still some snow out here in Montreal, and I have the year-in-review blog to put together.

Morrisburg rest stop, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Winter paintings along the Maisonneuve bike path

With the path clear I could easily ride my bike along the Maisonneuve bike path and make a few paintings along the way. The first one shows a few of the trees at Westmount park with the shadows cascading over the snow. In the background is mount royal.

Snow shadows, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

In front of the bicycle shop there is an old car, probably a Volvo, on stilts and in disrepair. With strong wind coming across from the east, it was a good challenge to stay warm and make a painting. Everything held up but my toes were a little cold throughout the trip. At least the hands and fingers were fine.

Ccar on stilts, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

This is about where Maisonneuve turns south and Ontario street carries on. Initially, I wanted to paint more of the snow on the grass in the foreground, but the background buildings were very tall to fit onto the paper. I will try to figure out how to get bigger paper on location in the winter.

Maisonneuve/Ontario street, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

These chimneys had great silver plumes, likely condensed water from laundry outlets rather than smoke. Burning wood is illegal in and around Montreal. With the sun coming from behind, the plumes were illuminated. I really pushed the limits of when you can do in the winter with this one, and like the last painting, a bigger piece of paper would have allowed more of the components to fit in. After painting 6 x 7.5 and 8 x 10 all summer, its an adjustment going back to the 5 x 7. Actually I cut them 5 x 7.5 to use the whole sheet.

Chimneys cold day, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Cold windy day paintings by bike

On a day like today with solid -20℃ windchill the best place in town is standing right next to the st Lawrence river where the wind chill is probably double that. The water was not fully frozen, but slushy chunks of ice were floating around and washing up on the small rocky beach. In the background is the south canal seaway wall which has a bike path and is surrounded by trees. On the other side would be Kahnawà:ke. I could not quite do justice to the ice effect, but it was good enough just to hold on to my paintbrush and paper under the fierce wind.

Ice on rocky beach, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

 On the way back I did a painting of the last barn in Lachine, it sits amidst new condo developments, and one feels that it may not be there forever given its dilapidated state. In the foreground is the Lachine canal partly frozen and covered in snow. When painting outdoors in winter one has to simplify the scenes a little, over the years I developed a different style in the winter than how I paint in the summer.

Last barn in Lachine, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Looking back to the west, the sun was going down behind the elevated highway over the canal. It created interesting blue shadows on the frozen water. The neat thing about the blurred-effect on the highway is that it draws more attention to the shadows, and gives the sense of a sun almost melting the environment. I kind of like this painting, maybe I can fit it into the Lachine Canal painting book I am working on.

Sundown over elevated highway, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

 

Carwash snowy evening

Yesterday just as the sun was going down I stopped on the Maisonneuve bike path and painted one of the two car washes that is still there. Many of the small shops have been plowed over for new condo developments. Keeping the highlights in was the key, the signs and windows were illuminated while everything else was grey brown and blue. With extra salt in the water it dries slower and creates blurred effects here and there. I went on to do a bunch more paintings that night as seen in the previous couple of blogs.

Carwash snowy evening, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Skating rink in cyan on a snowy night

The last painting of the day was this scene down in the Old Port where a lot of people were skating on this ring under multi-coloured lights. I had to pick a colour for the painting since it was moving between the whole rainbow of options every minute or two. Since I did a magenta skating rink last time, I went with cyan this time, thinking it would look good against the purple sky, black buildings, and yellow windows. It was snowing by now, and you can see the actual snow that landed on the wet painting turned into whitish marks that resemble snow. The cyan section was too moist so the snow just turned to water and made everything blur together. I thought about touching it up at home, even my initials are illegible, but then I kind of liked the blurred effect, it gave the feeling of movement and skating in the snow on a cold Montreal night. Tomorrow is officially Winter, so let go!

Skating rink cyan, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Warming up in Vendome station

When it got dark I turned into Vendome station and warmed up a bit, then got the lights attached to my bike. Before heading out again I made this painting looking west towards the main front entrance. The staircase on the left provided the compositional anchor, its where everyone walks down to get to the metro platforms. Searching for good scenes in the stations is tricky, the main thing is to find some good contrast and a strong light effect to cut through all the grey. Over 2021 - 2022 I made a tour of all the 68 Metro stations in Montreal, the vast majority of the series was done from the outside although there were a few interior scenes like De Castelnau, and Bonadventure. If I paint in Montreal more this winter, I will need to find a place to warm up every now and then.

Warming up Vendome station, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

On a cold and windy night

Heading down the Maisonneuve bike path on a cold and windy night with full bike lights I found a couple of scenes to paint including this one looking back west at a bike detour sign. This part of the path has been blocked off for more than 5 years now due to the Peel station renovations. Keeping the colours clean is tricky, especially the bright orange. I have a clean salty water, and the waste container with dirty salt water and I use both to paint. If its the dark sky I use dirty water, if its the clear colours I use the clean water. 

Bike detour, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

This dépanneur does not appear to have a name, even on google maps it was not listed. But its there, I swear. The wind comes down Maisonneuve pretty strong here, the massive Alexis Nihon mall and all the towers, with the mountain not too far to the north creates a wind tunnel. Fun times with the minus umpty-ump wind chill factor.

Dépanneur Maisonneuve x Fort watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Taking a detour down into the Place des Arts metro with my bike to warm up and sort my gear out, I made this painting of the famous mural reflecting off the topaz-coloured floor. For simplicity I did not try to paint all the people. A lot of homeless people warm up in the station and often talk to me, one person went on and on but was also standing in the way at the beginning. The art depicted is part of the long display done by Frédéric Back called the History of Music in Montreal.

Place des Arts warming up, watercolour 5 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

Sunset through trees, park Trenholme

At the center of Trenholme park in NDG there is an old stone structure with white plaster and orange trim, likely a 1960's era construction. Inside there is a small volleyball court and during elections it is a voting station. I made this painting while waiting for the Thursday Lufa Farm vegetable delivery at park Trenholme. We click on the options on the web site and a truck brings it in a plastic bin for pickup each week. The weather was surprisingly nasty, with close to -20℃ windchill, but it did not deter my efforts. In the midst of doing a painting like this, I sometimes stop feeling the physical cold momentarily. Its all in your head really, although it could end up in frostbite if one is not careful. Hopefully the weekend is amenable for painting, it was a bit of a slow art week with the lousy weather and me being tired. Looking forward to the week off next week.

Sunset through trees, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

Sun down in NDG another chilly day

As the sun went down in NDG, I rode westward and caught this view of several squirrel nests in a tree over rue st Jacques. The sky was done first using concentric rings of yellow, orange, red-orange and blue. After completing most of the bottom elements the sky had dried sufficiently to paint over the tree and nests. The wood rack that holds the paper down must have slipped because all the branches stop short of the top of the sky, something I might have to touch up. I also added the initials to all these paintings at home because they were far too moist to do it on location.

Squirrel nests over rue st Jacques, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

On location I had the feeling that this was the worst of the lot, most of the edges bled, meaning they blurred together with the adjacent elements. However, when I saw the scan, the pastel sky turned out fantastic and the whole composition really came together better than I thought. There were several little white chunks of paper that I decided to leave in, and now they look like gleaming highway signs and really add to the effect. There was a time when I would not even attempt to paint a sky like this, and indeed it takes careful control over the paint moisture and the colour varieties. The first painting I remember doing with the yellow-sun ring technique was the blue house with icicles in 2021. This year I did the outrageous sunset on Girouard scene, and the very technical piece setting sun through tree.

Sundown over highway and condos, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

Along the relatively new walking and biking path that stretches from west NDG to east NDG along the lake shore*, I attempted a complex scene depicting the path, trains and highway. The curvatures played well off each other, but the moist conditions limited the amount of detail that could be created. I will have to return under more ideal conditions with a bigger piece of paper, or come back when it snows. One of the best paintings I did this year was right here, train winter blast, that one will definitely be on my short list as I prepare the painting year in review blog. 

* I am referring to the area in this view as the lake shore, because that is what it was prior to the creation of the Lachine canal. In old times, this land was part of the st Lawrence river and would have been filled up when the water was high. It must have been a sight to behold, and no doubt the indigenous people would have fished and congregated around this lake.

Path trains and highway, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

Low sun cool day in Montreal by bicycle

This view is looking west along the Lachine canal right around the Atwater market, you can see the train was going by under a low winter sun. Being entirely backlit, the water sparkled and most of the scene was in monochrome.

Train over canal backlit, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

Looking west around the same spot, I caught this interesting view of the mostly frozen canal and patches of snow along the embankments with reeds on the left. The ice colours are created with a mixture of dark magenta (PV55) and blue-green (PG7) which creates a metallic bluish grey. To that I daubed in sky blue and various browns and dark greens to give the mottled effect of frozen water reflecting some of the surrounding elements.

Freezing canal with reeds, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

Here was the warm-up painting, done on the way downtown, I am standing just outside the Alexis Nihon mall looking east along Maisonneuve. Most of Montreal is in shadow especially with the sun being on such a low angle at this time of year. I was even standing in full shadow which makes the paint dry even slower than usual. Some people may wonder why I paint outdoors even in sub-zero temperatures, and so do I wonder why sometimes. The success rate on my paintings, if there is such a thing, is lower in the winter and at night. But I wonder if even that is just another obstacle. I thought about using glycerol to prevent the water from freezing, would it dry faster than the salt water?

Light and shadow along Maisonneuve, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

Downtown Orange

Along st Catherines there are plenty of restaurants and other late night establishments. This is an A&W hamburger joint, a few people were having some late night junk food. The composition was inspired by Hopper's painting nighthawks, a well known and oft-copied American masterpiece. On this night I was rather hoping to find some snow to reflect all the neat colours but the snow was long gone by now after a few days of rain. To do this painting I had to establish all the middle values, let it mostly dry on location, then over-paint the dark window and door frames with the figures in the shop. It came together pretty well, if I had more space, I could have fit in the dark blue-violet sky. When painting at night its usually best to include the sky, whereas this painting only shows the building. Yet looking at it, there is no doubt this is a night scene. With the sun going down so early, it looks like night scenes will be on tap for the next little while.

Downtown Orange, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

Montreal Night Colours

Place des Arts downtown had a winter garden festival set up with a lot of food and beverage stands with live music and colourful lights. A nearly full moon hung over the city skyline. With light cover the sky was a dark violet, almost purple. More coloured lights and glowing windows in the background buildings completed the scene.

Downtown colours, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

 

Looking south on rue Jeanne Mance, there were a lot of cars driving up then turning around because the Place des arts was fenced off for the winter festival. The fancy building with the copper-coloured walls and lit from above is apparently a hotel. With bitter cold the paint dried slowly making the details a bit of a challenge. The main effects were the rows of cars and the copper coloured facade of the hotel. 

Downtown copper, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

 

This scene depicts the top part of the contemporary art gallery which was illuminated in various shades of yellow. On the top right, there were strong blue lights which contrasted nicely against the dark cyan sky and yellow-brown buildings.

Downtown yellow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

 

This entire stretch of rue st Catherine is converted into a pedestrian only zone, and it was illuminated an intense blue from the overhead light installations. A prominent hotel was illuminated green, and there were many other colours to be seen. Hundreds of people were enjoying the cool evening and at least one was painting watercolours!

Downtown blue and green, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024

 

Not far from st Urbain along st Catherine, there was a long and narrow skating rink with plenty of people out enjoying the opportunity. Strong pink lights were illuminating the ice and the people. Keeping the paintings intact was key, since they were very moist and having done six paintings there had to be a way to keep them in the shoulder bag. For the most part the paintings turned out unscathed.

Skating rink magenta, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, December 2024