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

 

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

 

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