Reeling them in before the rain, downtown Montreal

Shaughnessy Village used to be a separate part of Montreal until the city enveloped it, now its remembered by a block of Victorian-style houses and a famous cafe. In the painting, multiple story apartments loom in the background, with the delicate structures below. It was going to rain today so I had to paint fast not knowing when the deluge would arrive.

Shaughnessy Cafe, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September  2024

On the left edge of the painting you see the side of the cafe, with the view down Lambert Closse street on the right. That black box on the bottom right is the old Forum arena where the Habs would play, now its a cinema and shopping area. The condos in the background are relatively new. The sky was turning pretty nasty as I painted.

View down Lambert Closse street, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September  2024

Tackling this subject was a daunting task, its a scene I want to do with a larger format and more detail one day, so this was mostly an exploratory sketch of it, using watercolour. I suppose most of my small location paintings are sketches, although every now and then one becomes a complete painting on its own. Like Gull over Water North Rustico from PEI has well over a hundred views!

Shaughnessy Cafe and upper section, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September  2024

For some reason there was a smaller piece of paper that I cut, and this painting seemed to be perfect for it. The red brick structure is the Bay downtown, with a monolithic office tower or condo in the background.

The Bay side view, watercolour 6 x 5" cold press, September  2024

 

The loading dock had a neat, repetitive structure with perspective, and the background building had yellow ochre brick. I missed the hue on the yellow ochre, after applying the purple-grey under-painting it cut the chroma of the second layer more than I expected. Judging the half chroma yellow is a tough one, too bright and its like a lemon, too dim and it approached a cardboard colour. Somehow I reeled off a large number of paintings today in a short time, so there will be a few more blogs.

The bay loading dock, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September  2024