Old Port with Snow and Ice

Making my way down to Bonadventure station by public transit, I walked the remaining distance to park Dieppe near the Old port. Along the way I stopped to paint this old silo structure with graffiti on the top. It also has a pink house, which is a structure that was there prior, and since painted pink by some clever art vigilantes. The foreground had a nice forest with rolling mounds of snow.

Old Silos with Graffiti,watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3683b)

The ice had broken up and refrozen several times creating a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours. Its the kind of scene I wanted to paint last year on a similar painting trip, but there was a strong blizzard that day. Getting the pattern right involved several applications of paint, I used combinations of perylene green (PBk31), phthalo green (PG7), indo blue (PB60) and yellow ochre (PY43). The sky colours were embellished a little to provide visual interest.

Broken ice, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3685b)

Taking a closer look, I tried a more impressionistic style to convey the patterns and colours of the broken ice flow with a setting sun reflection. Some of the Montreal skyscrapers were also seen in the reflection. The corner of the pier is seen at the top of the painting, that is the large platform where they set up the circus in the summer. I really hated this painting when I finished it on location, but now that I see it dried and on the blog, it really does capture the feeling of the ice flow even if its not a realistic depiction.

Abstract Ice, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, January 2024 (No. 3844b)