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)
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