Shaughnessy Café and other scenes along the way

The first painting of the day was a second attempt at the Shaughnessy Café location, this time facing almost head on. There was a minivan blocking the best spot to stand so I had to mentally straighten out the perspective into a single point view like this. It took some time, all the while getting blasted with cold wet wind, there seems to be a wind tunnel effect next to the massive old forum building, it was all I could do to hold onto the paper, which was held on a cardboard backing by elastics. In the painting you can see the pale yellow, ornate wood trim which has sun-burst patterns on top of the windows. Whomever designed this built a sun theme into the architecture, combining the yellow with the sun beam detailing, something I had not noticed before. The rest of the painting was a jigsaw puzzle of textures, details, and various shades of grey. Under the awning, is the half-basement floor which contains the actual Café. Its a scene worth revisiting, now that I understand the structure I can probably do an even better version. Last year, or maybe the year before I've lost track, I made several visits to the Dépanneur Diamond 10 in Lachine which was a good thing since it has been knocked down last time I was there. Unlike the Lachine location, this building is a mega triple A+ heritage building and will likely never be changed.

Shaughnessy Café, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, September  2024 

Continuing with the theme of making corrections, this is the funny old yellow ochre office tower that looks quaint next to the soaring glass and steel sky scrapers going up around it. At the time, I'll bet this building was impressive and very prestigious, it seems to be a brick and wood structure, although it may too have a steel frame underneath. Definitely a 1960's style construction. Its right next to the Bay building, behind the Hertz rental. Like the cafe location, I was here yesterday but the shade of yellow was not correct, so here I amped up the chroma with yellow ochre and dabs of synthetic yellow (PY97).

Yellow ochre building, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024

Speaking of soaring buildings, these ones really take the cake. If you look to the bottom left of the painting, you see the old triplex buildings, which would have seemed tall when they were built in the 19th century, then behind you see tall, taller and tallest buildings. In fact, the condo on the left was about 20% taller and more narrow than you see it scaled in the painting. My brushes were not fine enough to paint the triplexes small enough to scale it to the sky scrapers. This scene by the way is standing in the Place des Arts area where Jazz fest and other festivals are held. If there is a housing crisis in Canada, its not here!

Tall taller tallest, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024