Idle Clicker Art

 

Idle clicker games, also known as incremental games, got popular around 2010 with titles such as 'Cow Clicker' and the infamous 'Cookie Clicker'. Curious to know more I played two modern versions of the genre called 'Egg Inc.' and 'Cell to Singularity'. Then I tried the original Cookie Clicker when I had a few minutes to spare today before class. As the names suggest, these games involve a lot of clicking, or in the case of Egg Inc. a lot of clucking... you could say that the game had many layers. As you pass the levels, things cost more but you make more profits. In Cookie Clicker you can even buy 'grandmas' to help you make cookies. In the end, I concluded that these kind of games are not really games at all, rather they are a kind of interactive media. For example, in Cell to Singularity it was like clicking your way through a University textbook on life science. This small painting is an abstraction of a clicker game, it has some interesting thing in the middle with various supporting structures, and energy-stars are bubbling off the top with each click.

Idle Clicker Art, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2024

Atwater Market, Updated catalogue count, fall 2024

I made this painting last weekend on the way to Point st Charles, it was done near the Artwater market near the Lachine Canal. These tracks are no longer in use, at least, I was standing on them making a painting so I hope so. Other people were walking on them, and the tracks go straight through the busy Atwater market, so there was no way they are still in use. Choo choo! But seriously, you can also see the green footbridge, and some of the city skyline in the distance.  

The other reason for this blog was to give an update on the catalogue, which is a spreadsheet of mostly all of the paintings I have done since the first original painting in 1989. The new line is 5232 paintings in total, and I was at 4438 by the end of last year. I had to a double check, that means I completed 794 paintings this year so far. There was a time when I thought 100 paintings per year was a lot, and the most I did was 8 in one day in Spain 1998. This year, there was one day I made 17 paintings, and quite often I was doing 20+ on weekends. Its not my style to boast about things like this, in fact, my initial plan this year was to paint less numbers with bigger size and more detail. I ended up doing more numbers of paintings, with bigger sizes, and more detail. Maybe there is something wrong with me. But as an artist, sometimes you are just along for the ride down the tracks. 

Tracks and footbridge Atwater Market, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4152b)

Intense sky over Fielding Avenue

On the way back I stopped on Fielding and Walkley to make one last painting for the day. The sky was an intense yellow with purplish clouds. A row of parked cars adorned the foreground, and simple brick residential/commercial buildings completed the scene. The colours were all exaggerated in order to give the sense of what I was seeing as an artist, on an otherwise grey and drab looking corner. A lot of people from the community congregate here around the barber shop and the corner store. One fellow who owns the shoe store liked my paintings and follows me on Instagram, and I follow his DJ kicks.

Intense sky over Fielding Av, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4145b)

Wasserman's Woodland, fall scenes

 

Feeling a little glum about painting along the Decarie, I crossed over to the east side and quickly saw a woodland area, a forest in NDG! I had rode around this location many times before on the bike path just to the south on Montpetite, but never actually knew a forest was there on Cote st Catherine. Its part of Mackenzie King park, so named after a controversial political figure of Canada's history, although its a controversy I would rather not get into on the blog, you can find the story on King at wikipedia. The woodland on the other hand, is named after a theater producer and philanthropist named Dora Wasserman. I just found some information, and apparently this woodland was a kind of neglected dump until about 2017 when the community went through and cleaned it up and removed the invasive species. They also set up the roped-off walking paths to protect the delicate plants. It seems to have worked, when I was there today it all looked pristine and it was teeming with squirrels. Just one hobo in a tent was living off to the edge of the forest.

Wasserman's Woodland highlight, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4146b)

 

This was the first painting I did on the location, it was very moist and no sunlight due to overcast conditions. I tried to capture all the squirrels running around, and the dense layer of leaves. I had to wear the gauntlet mittens the whole time which is like painting with oven mitts on too. You can see in the second painting I did here (first in the blog) I made several adjustments to increase the hue intensity and contrast. I am really glad to have found this woodland, and hope to return here during different season's such as winter should it ever really start. It was very quiet in there too, all the sounds of the city were just a distant murmur.

Wasserman's Woodland squirrels, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4156b)

Giant dog mural, angled glass building and a dumpster diver

There were a couple of scenes along the Decarie that I was unable to complete yesterday, so I rode back and made these paintings. The first one shows the Tilley's Hat mural of a giant pug dog done in magenta and purple. According to the signature on the mural, it was done by John Kaye. Everyone who drives by on Decarie boulevard or stops for gas will see this mural. 

Tilley Mural, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, November 2024

 

For what seems to be endless blocks, there is a continuous glass building with an angled front. In the interior, the whole thing is being renovated, like it is being completely gutted and redone. I have no idea what it is supposed to be, looks like retail space. Perhaps in the old days there were houses here, which would have been knocked down when the highway was built in the 1960's.

Angled glass building, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4158b)

 

The last painting needed time to dry before over-laying the tree and other details, so I made this painting looking over to my left. A fellow in a hoodie was dumpster diving, looking for treasures behind the tall fence. I was kind of doing the same thing... painting watercolours of these bleak scenes hoping to create some artistic magic. But there's no way I would ever jump into a dumpster.

Dumpster Diver, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Pleasant walk along Decarie Blvd

It may have been a pleasant walk, before the Decarie highway was built this was a residential boulevard. The traffic must have been pretty intense though, which necessitated the construction of this highway which connects autoroute 40 to downtown and across to Verdun and beyond. It was a nice day at least, I got off to a late start and had to make due with what little time and opportunity there was to paint. This scene focuses on a yellow right turn sign, with a pedestrian bridge cutting across to the other side of the sunken highway. The glowing cloud effect is done with wet-in-wet technique where a dilute yellow mix is added to a semi-dry purplish mix to create a smooth backwash. One of my favorite paintings of the year, Cloud over Trenholme Park, used a similar technique to great effect.

Right turn Decarie Blvd, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4157b)

 

Next to the gas station there is a purplish building with a giant mural of a bulldog and a wide parking lot, seen in the painting. Actually I just decided to paint the trees and houses in the background and composed a bit of the warehouse on the right. Perhaps I can go back and paint the bulldog some time.

Back lot bulldog building, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4157a)

 

Without much to choose from, I did one last scene of these signs in and around the highway. A new car wash was on this corner, it looks like it used to be a car rental place or somethings. The green sign behind the trees is one of the highway signs that hangs over the decarie. Its kind of neat to see houses in the background, although it must be noisy and somewhat polluted to live so close to this highway.

Signs of the time, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4158a)

Auto shop sign at night

 

With the sun going down so early and me working later these days, it has made for more night paintings in the last little while. In this scene, you see the famous auto shop on Somerled avenue, made famous by a certain watercolour painter over the years. One day I should put one of these in a frame and give it to Joe and Ralph, who are the apparent owners of the business. The clouds and sky were done with just two paints, indo blue (PB60) and pyrol red-orange (PO73). For the clouds it is a dilute version of the orange with a touch of the blue, while the sky is a heavy mix of the blue with a  touch of the orange. The numbers are the pigment codes, since companies use different names for paints, but the code remain the same. Essentially the two paints make variations of neutral purple which are ideal for painting the sky just after the sun has completely gone down. It would have been nice to make more paintings today but the wind chill was quite cold and I just had the light gloves on today. I felt the paint getting a bit slushy, but not to the point where I need to add salt in the water yet. In the winter, I will continue painting outside, in fact the lowest temperature that I painted at was minus 39 Celsius on campus last year.

Auto shop sign at night, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4155b)

Sundown on Harley Street

After work I rode down to Harley street to pick up some bread at Snowdon Bakery, and made these paintings as the sun went down. On the right is the City Fruterie gorcer, and the street is Harley street. Turning right at the end would bring you to the train tracks and then up into the main part of NDG. The local community center made planters and benches as you see in the bottom right of the painting. As usual there was a row of cars, and a constant clang clang clang noise from the commuter train crossing.

Sundown on Harley Street, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4154)

Turning to leave I saw two black pleather chairs in the field and decided to give it a go. There was only room in the painting for one chair, and I composed it with the commuter train in the background and a strong, central tree element to anchor the composition. The tree colours were made to be very tye-dye style with yellow, orange, magenta, green and blue. Its a bizarre painting, almost surreal despite the fact that it was done on location!

Pleather chair in field, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4155a)

Surely two paintings was enough, but when I turned to go, the massive flood lights at Raffi auto turned on, creating an eerie glow against the colourful sky. Its one of those paintings where there is no formula, no strategy per say, you just paint it and hope for the best. It turned out to be very dramatic indeed. By now it was nearly dark and time to go home. Actually the weather was so mild I could do these without gloves on.

Raffi lights on at sundown, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4156a)

Galactic Lecture

It looks like a galactic string theory, or a pizza pie in the sky. Since I have been lecturing a lot lately, its mostly meant to depict a galactic lecture. The magnifying glass on the right is odd in that one would use a telescope to see the starts, but this scene is showing the interior of a mitochondria with the electron transport chain and proton pump. To paint the star field I used neutral tint, a Winsor and Newton paint made from carbon black (PBk6) blue-green (PG7) and magenta (PV19). Perhaps when the lectures are over I can return to the galaxy and do a few abstract paintings. With the weather as it is, the snow flakes are just as they are in the painting, a figment of our imagination, or stars in the galaxy. Class dismissed.

Galactic Lecture, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, November 2024

Farine Five roses (Malt Factory) and area

 

For some reason these paintings did not seem to make it to the blog, they should have appeared right around the end of September. Anyways, it gives me something to write about. These scenes were done along the bike path that goes by the Farine Five roses sign on top of the Malt Factory, just after I completed the painting of geese flying out of Peel Basin. If this weather continues, the geese are probably going to come back early! Instead of trying to paint the whole sign I just did the last few letters by outlining them with the blue sky, then filling in the block letter with red paint. The facade is very complex, there are lots of windows and layers. 

Partial Farine Five Roses sign and silos, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4071b)

 

In the background is one of the gantry cranes of the active part of the port, and the malt factory in the foreground. Its main purpose is to make malted barley for brewing beer at the Molson Brewery down the river. Viewing the malt factory is overwhelming, so I just painted it in pieces, this one showing some of the buildings off to the side.

Gantry crane green factory shadow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4070b)

 

This old Machine shop is in st Henri, the words machine stop are still visibly stenciled onto the brick. Inside, it may well be a machine shop, but I think it is condos inside. All of the bike paths were redone in ville st Henri and Point st Charles making it a pleasure to ride around especially on a warm September summer day.

Machine Shop, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4048b)

 

A few more lost and found paintings: buildings

Here are a few more lost and found paintings, they had been scanned but never made it to the blog for whatever reason. In this scene, the rain clouds were enveloping the top of the skyscraper. I tried to capture the effect with a wet-in-wet technique. Later on the same day I painted a similar scene down by the train bridge.

Soggy day in Westmount, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, Summer 2024 (No. 4008b)

This was the first attempt at painting Montreal through the trees from Mount Royal looking south. The city buildings did not show very well but you can kind of get the idea that there are buildings behind the trees. Shortly after, I did a second version.

Montreal through the trees v1, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4016b)

 

I must have blogged about this one, but could not seem to find it anywhere. It was done down by the Lachine canal some time in late August, looking up at the old Malt silos. Painting rust is always fun.

Industrial 101, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4026b)

 

I did this one on the way back from a painting trip downtown, it shows boats in the water, with the Science Center in the background and a condo on the right. It may have been the same trip as when I did the touristy scene.

Boats in Old Port, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4039b)

This was the first one I did during the house music festival down in peel basin, the sun was setting which created a warm glow on the clouds. After painting these Majestic Condos, I knew how many stories there were, but still had trouble getting it right. No matter, the greys glow, and the tinted windows play well off the cyan sky. Updating the catalogue has been a real chore this time, it is well over 5000 paintings now and I still have a large stack of about a hundred 6 x 7.5" paintings.

Condos cloud glow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4039b)

Sunshine over Point st Charles and other scenes

After painting another dépanneur in Point st Charles I turned to see this incredible view down the street. Its the corner of Charlevoix and Knox, looking west along Knox. I liked the way the trees on the left were reaching up towards the sun, and how the classic architecture reflected the sunbeams on their bricks. Painting into the sun is never advisable, I had polarized sunglasses on, and my bike visor blocked the sun, which was much higher in the sky in real life. There were a few more scenes around here I might like to do if it ever snows, as you can see in the painting it was just like spring today. 

Sunshine over Point st Charles, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4151)

 

Here is the dépanneur painting it is a Provi-Soir brand, with an interesting facade. The red brick building in the background is typical for the area. Holding together the composition is a prominent tree sweeping upwards. Sometimes I use yellow ochre to over-paint the tree branches on the sky, which works reasonably well even if it breaks a few watercolour 'rules'. I wrote a blog about it once, where I broke all the rules possible to make a painting, and then waited for the watercolour police to show up, but that never happened.

Beau-Soir Provi-Soir on Charlevoix, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4152a)

 

Part of the old train yard has been bought by the city and they are developing it into a community project, a kind of hipster haven perhaps. This old building, probably where the engineers used to fix trains, has been converted into little shops, a community garden, and a few other projects in the works. There were a lot of people here working on the gardens, playing in a park area, and generally enjoying the space. One fellow liked my painting and said in French that he also does watercolours.

Point st Charles development, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4153a)

 

Lastly, there was an old rusty train bridge that had been spray painted with black and white graffiti with green highlights. The colours and textures were incredible so I made a quick painting of it, along with some of the surrounding elements. The street going underneath is Wellington, which stretches from downtown Montreal all the way to Verdun.

Train bridge over Wellington st, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4153b)

Train yard perspectives (seven trains)

 

Standing by my bike at the top of the Point st Charles train yard view point, I made this painting looking south along the train tracks where they park the commuter trains. These would be the same ones I paint from time to time during the week as they go to west island and back. I painted the outline of the trains first, then filled in the pale gravel colour and worked on the background elements. When the outlines were about dry I dropped int he train texturing and details, then completed the grassy embankment. The fun part, finally was painting the tracks using a mix of red ochre (PR101) and orange (PO62) and probably some yellow ochre (PY43). Getting the train shapes and volume took some extra fiddling around, then the painting was done. The elevated train went by in the background near the end so I added it real quick, making it a total of seven trains in this painting.

Train yard perspectives (seven trains), watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4150)

Montreal Rectangles (view from train yard)

At the end of Point st Charles, there is a shipping container depot and train yard. Today I found a viewing platform they built...a walking pathway on a hill overlooking the train yard that offered this vantage point of Montreal and the shipping containers. The other day on my blog, I was lamenting the fact that these shipping containers are hard to paint. Today I took an abstract approach, just varying the containers as squares or rectangles, filling them in with a variety of colours, and adding a few shadows here and there for a touch of realism. It was more like doing a palette cleanser abstract! The rest of the scene is sandwiched by the Montreal skyline and the rail yard in blues and browns. It worked out really well, and its safe to say I finally got a decent painting done of the shipping containers.

Montreal Rectangles, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, November 2024

Lost and found paintings

As I continue the catalogue update, a few paintings were lost and found. Sometimes they get left out of a blog, or maybe I was not thrilled about the painting at the time. This one shows a pale yellow shack, or shanty, near the beach in North Rustico PEI... you can tell from the red sand! 

North Rustico pale yellow shack, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2024 (3978b)

Back to NDG, here is the Reno Depot parking lot south of the train tracks. I paint here from time to time, the sight lines are good although the scenery is a little dull. Painting parking lots is especially difficult, the cars have odd shapes and the perspective is very deep.

Reno Depot Parking lot, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, summer 2024 (3991b)

Another painting of Snowdon Bakery on Harley street, looking back towards Elerdale. It seems that I had trouble with the roof line of the building and perspective on the sidewalk. The shadows really glow, I can tell this was done in the summer.

Snowdon Bakery with Shadow, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, summer 2024 (3990b)

An enormous condo building is going up along st Jacques street in a noisy and generally unpleasant location. At least it will make for some good housing for people. I depicted some of the construction elements with heaps of gravel. Earlier in the year I did a neat painting of a person welding in this site.

Construction yard st Jacques, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, summer 2024 (3992b)

Pizza 88 under moon

On the way back I pretty near went by this scene due to being tired and feeling generally unwell but I knew that it was a now or never type of scene to paint. The moon had a greyish halo around it which I outlined using a dilute yellow ochre (PY43), and surrounded by with blue (PB60). The pizza restaurant was mostly done in variations of yellow ochre neutralized with the indo blue, and hinds of orange. The brick colour is pale ochre, but the sign cast a greenish glow, and the moon cast a whitish glow. Amber lights illuminated the right side of the structure. Its harder than it looks, this painting, to manage it I used a smaller brush and established the perspective lines first. The lower section was completed, leaving the sky white for most of the painting time. Leaving the sky until last, the scene looked terrible, but when that dark blue sky went in... it was really neat. I am glad to have done this painting up on the corner of Walkley and Fielding. 

Pizza 88 under moon, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4148)

Moon over McDonald's and other night scenes

 

A clear inky blue sky and bright orb-like moon made for some interesting scenes. Here is the McDonald's up in Cavendish mall where the parking lot has some powerful white lights making it possible to paint. It was just after work and I hadn't planned to do a bunch of night paintings after a long week in the office. As usual with a night scene there were light sources coming from every direction. It was a little hazy which created a fuzzy halo around the moon.

Moon over McDonald's v2, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4147b)

 

This was the first attempt where I composed the moon centrally and featured more of the building on the right. In fact, the moon was hidden behind the apartment buildings on the right, so I had to add it in from memory.

Moon over McDonald's v1, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4016a)

 

These apartments over in Cote st. Luc were visible through some trees. It was a bit earlier than the other paintings so the sky still had some violet. It is very difficult to get the high chroma colours in there like the bright yellow, orange and reds since the palette gets pretty mucky when painting in the night.

Night scene through trees, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4147a)

Trenholme park night glow

The games area in Trenholme park is usually lit up with amber lights and strong white flood lights intended to allow people to play the games in the dark. They have a croquet pitch, shuffleboard style areas, and horseshoes. Only problem is that the area is rarely or almost never used by people althogh we gave it a try once or twice. A large billboard sign says that they plan to redevelop the park to be more modern and have a variety of things for people, although I would vote for planting more trees instead. Montreal does have a habit of stuffing their parks with installments to the point where nobody can move around. In the painting, you see the stone structure that houses an indoor volleyball court and acts as the voting station in elections, with the iron fence surrounding the games area. I am standing under one of the white floodlights using it to do the painting. I really like the sky and the right part of the painting, to make the dark blue I added a touch of carbon black to indo blue (PBk6 + PB60) which Van Gogh used to do in his last paintings. He would have used ultramarine though, indo blue didn't quite exist back then but he would have liked it no doubt... many of his paintings contain very deep dark blues including his famous starry night painting. 

Trenholme park night glow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4145a)

Moon over Metro

I typed moon over Montreal to get an idea of where I could stand in order to paint a scene of the moon hanging over Montreal. Standing downtown, it would appear to rise around the Mercier bridge south west, and move across the west part of the sky, setting about north west. In NDG, it rises from somewhere around the Decarie, moves over Somerled roughly parallel, over our Condo, then descends around the auto shop. In doing a google image search for moon over Montreal, another Montreal artist Darlene Young popped up in the search she did a painting of the moon over a snowy Montreal street at night which was a rather impressive feat and I looked into trying to buy the painting. In my painting, the moon was over the old bank (our condo is just on the right side), and I am standing under the Metro grocery store overhang (the L shaped thing in the top left). For the most part this was a test of my ability to paint with the gauntlet-mitts on... I was able to complete the set up, painting, and packing up without taking them off, although I dropped the palette once. Still no need to use salt in the water which is nice.

Moon over Metro, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No.

Purple sky after work

 

The sky after work had a pinkish glow on the horizon, with deep purple and dark blue colours. I used a dilute wash of pyrol orange (PO73) because it becomes pinkish when diluted with water. Some painting change their colour (hue) when you add more water... when a paint is thick its called mass tone, when its diluted its called the tint. I learned this from MacEvoy's handprint.com, where he extolled the virtues of pyrol orange. To give it a slight violet hue I let it mix a bit with the indo blue (PB60). Moving up in the sky, I added more indo blue and then touches of blue-green (PG7). Its all easier said than done, especially when wearing giant oven-mitt sized gauntlet gloves and getting pelted with hail, or rain, or both. Its amazing the paper didn't blow away it was so gusty. It was truly unpleasant to paint a picture under these circumstances. Funny enough, it came out looking kind of peaceful. People think painting is relaxing but that is only true when you are sitting at home in a warm studio with a hot cup of tea or coffee. Try standing under a Montreal highway overpass in a rainstorm, painting pigeons with a strong scent of urine all around. Although, that one was a relaxing moment as I remember it.

Purple sky with busses, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4149a)

Pine tree, and other scenes on a cloudy day

Just next to the busy Vendome intersection where Maisonneuve meets Decarie boulevard and Upper Lachine road, there is a tiny sliver of grass on a hill with several pine trees and a birch tree. The trees were looking a little worse for wear so I discreetly put some fertilizer spikes in last year and now they look very thick and green. Reaping the benefits, I made a painting of one of them today, with the freshly painted mural in the background that runs along the bike path. The tree was mostly yellow (PY184), dark green (PBk31), and carbon black (PBk6) for shadows. Little branches were painted over with a mix of yellow ochre (PY43) and red ochre (PR101/PBr7).

Pine tree in nook, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4143)

It was overcast and gloomy with a pinkish glow today. These blue mountains in the distance are probably mount st Helen, mount Sutton or even Jay peak, I am not sure. In the middle ground would be mostly st Henri and downtown Montreal. I liked how the orange facade of the Reno Depot played out against the blue and coral colours in the sky.

Blue mountains, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4141b)

There is a very steep knife's-edge hill that runs along the back of the hospital and down towards Glen road. In fact it is called Glen path hill. They recently replanted a large number of trees which really took off in the last few years. On the right, lower, I painted in me riding my bike up the hill, and on the left background is the spire on the st Jacques Bridge. The rest of the scene is dominated by the enormous pile of lego bricks that is the Glen yard hospital. I suppose the old glen yard, where many people, probably including my grandfather on my Dad's side worked, was connected to st Henri by this Glen's path. I can imagine workers heading up from their houses early going to work.

New growth on Glen hill, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4142a)

Côte-des-Neiges metro and other unusual buildings

I finally found the occasion, and the mood, to paint a frontal view of Côte-des-Neiges metro. At the conclusion of the 68 stations of the Montreal metro series I painted the view on the other side of the street. This view is always back-lit and the architecture is interesting to say the least, sort of a lego-with-marble idea going on. I varied the colours in the facade to avoid too much grey and black. A tree was growing behind the structure, creating a halo of branches at the top. 

Côte-des-Neiges metro frontal view, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4138b)

 

Squirrels will build nests out of leaves and mud high up in the trees. These nest are not very reliable since they can blow away in the winter, hollow tree trucks are much more reliable. This nest was at incredible heights, it seemed to soar above the condos. I painted a scene of a squirrel nest in Griffintown the other weekend. There is another view of a squirrel nest along Walkley street that I may try when it snows.

Home above homes, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4141a)

 

This hospital is an unreal mountain of bricks sprawling over several football fields worth of area. To compose the scene I cropped in on a couple of smoke stacks and a tree that still and some leaves left on it. To make the brick colours I varied yellow ochre (PY43), red ochre (PR101, PBr7) with dabs of orange (PO62) and red-orange (PO36). The red-orange paint is made by Da Vinci company and sold from Studio 6 in Toronto, I got it by online order. In fact, they dont even open their store to customers, its online order only. Apparently they were like this even before the pandemic. Art supplies are relatively straightforward to purchase on line if you know what you want. The difficulty is figuring out what to get, there are dozens of companies and thousands of products to sift through.

St. Mary's Hospital smoke stack, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4140b)

Caramel colours around Mount Royal

Around Mount Royal the city demolished an old concrete overpass and completely renovated the entire area with paths and new roads with plenty of green space preserved. Most of the trees that were on the overpass embankments were also saved including the one in the painting. Its shadow cast down and to the left over top of the colourful leaves. I painted this scene early in 2021 on a snowy day when the overpass was still intact.

Tree shadow Autumn, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4138a)

 

Too exhausted to ride up the hill, I contented myself with painting the scene looking up. The cars were scaled to give a sense of distance and the road was composed on a steep diagonal. With Autumn well advanced, most of the colours were warm caramels and olive greens. I mixed them with yellow ochre, oranges, greens, and dabs of red-orange. Its easy to overdo it and get colours that are too bright, or colours that are grey and drab.

Up the hill, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4139)

 

In the background is the cemetery, as always I have to make the joke that people are dying to get into it. At least I wont offend anyone. This prominent tree has an incomprehensible tangle of branches emanating in every direction, its a wonder it survives the winter covered in snow. When and if it ever does snow, perhaps I will try to do a painting of it again.

Tree of Life, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024 (No. 4140a)