Warehouses and storage in Point st Charles

 

Point st Charles still has warehouses and storage areas with some light industrial, especially in the east part of town near the highways and rail yards. In the background you see the tall silos that were converted into climbing walls for energetic hipsters and their kids. The prominent A-frame warehouse on the left dominated the scene and cast a long shadow over the cars which looked tiny in comparison. I don't know what the warehouse is for, but when I looked at google maps it showed a derelict and graffiti covered building with broken windows, whereas today in real life it was totally clean and appeared to be fully operational. A rare instance where new investment came in to refurbish and restore a warehouse back to its original purpose.

Warehouses and silos, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, November 2024 (No. 3911b)

 

Standing in the shadow on a narrow and steep grass embankment next to the road, I made this painting of the sun dipping below the A-frame roof of the warehouse. The paper size is new for me, I used a 2:1 format which is normally used for sea-scapes. In his latter phase, Van Gogh used the 2:1 format, although he was doing 50 x 100 inches. Most of his 2:1 paintings were of fields on the horizontal, and he did at least one portrait on the vertical. So far I like the format, in this case it helped emphasize the line of the A frame roof on perspective, giving a graphic-design feel to the scene.

Warehouse Silhouette, watercolour 4.5 x 9" cold press, November 2024 (No. 3914)

 

Trying the 2:1 format on the horizontal I made this painting of the shipping containers that go as far as the eye can see from left to right. In the background is the elevated train road. Having tried scenes like this several times before, it has never gone quite right. Its one of those locations where there must be a great painting waiting to happen once it is found. In fact, I could have made a dozen more painting in this area but it was time to pack it in, we lost one hour of light today so the daylight painting is even shorter.

Shipping containers, watercolour 4.5 x 9" cold press, November 2024 (No. 3915)