Sun going down on the lachine canal

The colours around the Lachine canal picked up an interesting amber glow as the sun descended. Greys were warmer, yellows were slightly olive, and blues took on a neutral appearance. What makes the painting really work is the composition, with the lamp providing a strong anchor and depth. I actually just wanted to paint the sumac tree off to the right, and it really came together with the other elements including a busy overpass bridge. 

Canal overpass with lamp and sumac, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4022)

 

By now its a classic scene of the gantry train by the Lachine canal. You just can't go wrong painting this! There was a prominent tree right in the middle of the scene which I had planned to include, but the scene was nice enough as it was. You have to make quick decisions like that on the fly when painting on location.

 Gantry crane sun down, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4023a)

 

Its the first thing you see when taking the 'new' route over the highway and reach the canal which explains why I have painted this billboard and bridge so many times. Especially in the winter, the path is difficult to ride on and I stick to this particular spot. But today I felt like painting the canal so here it is! When painting concrete, its important to notice that the value is quite high, that is light, its like a pale neutral beige almost. The sky on the other hand is about a medium value.

Canal overpass with billboard, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4024a)

 

Part of the massive Turcot project was to improve the st Jacques access from the highway. The cars at the top of the painting would be coming from downtown Montreal, driving west, over top of the trains, and heading up to NDG via st Jacques. What appealed to me about this scene, besides the train tracks was the abundant foliage that they planted on the embankment, which included blue pine trees. As usual I replaced the graffiti with my initials PJD24 using the style that was there in real life just different letter. Its kind of fun copying the graffiti art, some of it is pretty good.

On ramp and train track, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4024a)

 

I wrote about making quick decisions on the fly and in this case it did not work out as well as I had hoped. The plan was to frame the sumac tree and canal scene with the top of the bridge and foreground shadows. When I saw how nice the canal, tree and gantry was looking, the bridge element on top just seemed unnecessary. I pulled off this type of composition successfully when painting Molson Brewery under Cartier bridge, but in the Molson painting I had the bridge much higher, and showed one of the bridge supports to tell the visual story more accurately. At any rate, I would surely like to go back to this general area to make more paintings.

Nice view under overpass, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4023b)