Year end tally 2025, vegetable circuit

In 2020 during the downtime, I catalogued all of the paintings I had done since 1989 and kept it up ever since. Its been a regular activity throughout the year, to name, number and catalogue the paintings into a spreadsheet. The main reason is to help find the paintings, for example, my cousin bought some of the images and I used the catalogue number to find the paintings and do high res scans. It also helps me to see where I've been in terms of productivity, not that the number of paintings really matters. Picasso was known to have created close to 150,000 pieces of artwork, although many of those were prints and mass produced pieces. Most of the paintings in my collection are very small, postcard sized, although I also do the occasional larger piece. Since 1989, I made about 6380 paintings, and in 2025 alone, I made 1060 paintings. Including Vegetable Circuit, an abstract painting shown above. There is a graph at the end of this blog, 

Vegetable circuit, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, December 2025

Here is a graph of the number of paintings since 2019,  per year. There was a huge jump in the pandemic year and it increased lately. For 2026 I might shift into less numbers but larger paintings on location, otherwise I will start running out of boxes to store them. But then again I said the same thing at the beginning of 2025. 

 

 

Frozen dumpster, icy reflections,

Behind the High school there is a large parking lot that was totally iced over. Somehow, a few cars were still navigating it and parking here. In the middle of the parking lot there is a large maroon-coloured dumpster which I painted with a mix of perylene maroon (PR179) and quinacridone purple (PV55). With the cold temperatures and windchill persisting, paint dried slowly resulting in a slightly dull finish. It does give the atmosphere of a very cold day. 

Dumpster frozen lot, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

Last location painting of the year, here is the frozen surface of the basketball court in Coffee Park, its reflecting trees and a passing commuter train. Its been a good year... I posted the 2025 year in review, and will update the annual painting count shortly. I have a few ideas for 2026, and it wont be long to wait, happy new years ! 

Icy reflections, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  

Icy surfaces everywhere, chip truck

Parked out in front of City Fruiterie was this chips truck, I changed the brand to be my initials but you can probably guess which brand it was! I used some of my still life techniques to paint the truck, including fonts, and shiny things. The view was cropped because there were not too many places to stand next to my bike and paint today, I found a little corner at the strip mall where the locals hang out in the summer, it blocked most of the wind chill. 

Chip truck, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4972b)

Speaking of wind chill, I had just dropped off some donation items at the local Renaissance thrift store, and made a quick painting out in the expansive parking lot. The entire parking lot was frozen solid like a skating rink, making it impossible to ride. I had to walk my bike around the edges where the snow was crunchy. The painting was much brighter and with more contrast upon completion, but the slow drying time allowed paint to soak into the paper more than usual. This tends to happen when the windchill approaches -30℃. My water is heavily salted in the winter to prevent freezing, but it still freezes a bit in these conditions.  

Frozen parking lot, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  (No. 4987b)

Diner Domes and other winter scenes

Down in the Old Port Montreal, boats are gone from the frozen marina, and replaced with... diner domes? I hadn't seen these before, geodesic plastic domes sitting upon a table and two chairs. There were about two dozen such domes strewn about the wharves, unoccupied for the time being. With some internet searching, these diner domes are part of an outdoor restaurant, at night they are illuminated with LED lights and attended to by a waiter. 

Diner dome, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4987)

The artificial beach in Old Port is covered in snow, making the umbrellas look rather useless. In the background, the restaurant boat that is usually sitting in the canal near Atwater market was moored on a dock, not operational. Wind had swept over the snow-covered sand creating a wavy pattern. 

Snow umbrella restaurant boat, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  (No. 4986b)

From Viger Square there was a good view of Cartier bridge and Molson's old brewery, still standing. When painting with heavily salted water in the winter, the paint stays moist for quite awhile. I have two wood drying racks, so I can do two paintings on location, ride to the next spot, and change for fresh papers. For dexterity, I wear very thin gloves underneath the oven-mitt gauntlets, so when I need to change papers I take off the outer-mitts briefly, but never expose skin to the frigid conditions.  

Bridge and Molson's from Viger square, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4984b)

 

Sunlight a valuable commodity?

Riding across the Maisonneuve bike path in downtown Montreal and you start to realize that sunlight is a valuable commodity in the city. From Atwater market all the way to Place des Arts, there is hardly a sliver of light. After they finished the massive condo towers recently, the last remaining sunlight is all but gone. Standing in the shadow of Montreal, I thought, might as well embrace the situation and paint the scene as it is, giant monolith-like condo towers blocking the sun entirely. 

Montreal Shadows, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4988)

Off towards the Place des Arts building, where they hold the University convocation and other types of entertainment, there was a sliver of light coming through. I've painted this snow pile before, for the same reason, its one of the few spots that gets sun this time of year. Those condo towers get plenty of sun through their all-glass exteriors... the condo owners, no doubt, are sitting up there having a cup of coffee with sun in their living room. While the rest of us plebs down on the street walk in the shadows.  

Sliver of light, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4986a)

Turning south I rode towards Old Montreal and stopped off at Viger square, a recently renovated park area with seating and about a million interlocking bricks. Heavy snow fall, undisturbed, cast a warm glow and produced flat blue shadows. A single trail of footprints cut through the snow. Framed structures sprawl throughout the square offering a Stonehenge-like display of concrete.

Viger Square snow shadows, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4985b)  

Westhaven field cold day

Down at the end of Harley street in Westhaven there is a field I talked about in the year in review post, today I stopped by to make a few paintings on a cold weekend. Behind the trees you see the Perform centre on the left and the sports dome that collapsed earlier this year on the right. The Perform center has a long and tall tinted glass window that runs around the back of the building, you see it in the painting, that's where the administrators have their giant board room that is seldom used for anything. Back in my office and the laboratory where everyone actually works there are no windows! 

Field dome perform, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4984a)

As the background dried in the previous painting, I turned towards the west and painted this view of Raffi's auto shop with a truck parked out front. Tall trees filled the sky. It was fairly quiet out, not much traffic and most shops including the auto shop were closed, although Snowdon Bakery was open and I picked up a couple of fresh loaves of bread. 
Raffi's with truck, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4985a)  

Holiday paintings in Bolton

Over a brief holiday to visit Mom and Dad, I completed a few paintings around the backyard and valley. Their house backs onto a ravine, so there are plenty of forest scenes to be painted. Above is a scene of a very tall pine tree in the backyard, with the colourful christmas lights on the railing of the balcony. 

Tree deck lights, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4979b)

Down in the valley, tall grass and reeds were poking out over deep snow. Bright sun illuminated the scene, creating blue shadows and a warm glow. The reeds are done with raw sienna, a dab of burnt sienna, then a dab of raw umber. All three paints are called PBr7 (brown pigment 7) but look and handle differently. 

Sun over valley, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4982a)

This willow tree still had some yellowish streaks which contrasted nicely against the blue sky. I first established the blue sky with a simple colour fade (described in my page on how to paint the sky), then daubed in some moist yellow ochre to let it blend wet-in-wet. As it dried, I worked on the previous painting (sun over valley), then went back to this one and applied the dry-brush tree trunk and branch textures. 

Winter willow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4983a)

Last time I painted this pond there were still geese remaining. No geese this time around, just some logs encased in ice. With the temperature and amount of salt in the water, I went for an impressionist style using short, distinct brushstrokes. In this way, the scene can be completed in one go without waiting for layers to dry. As a watercolour painter I am always thinking about the timing and order of things to create a finished work on location. 

Logs frozen pond, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4983b) 

Squirrels were bounding through the snow, like this one, looking for some forgotten nut or morsel of food. In the winter, they send one squirrel out at a time, leaving the rest of the family in the nest. The squirrels here in Montreal do the same thing when the temperature drops enough. If it warms, several will come out at the same time, its a matter of heat conservation. Another neat thing we learned is that squirrels will purr like a cat if you can get close enough and they are relaxed. Cilei got me a squirrel T-shirt printed and made in Montreal for christmas, it is cool. We got lots of chocolates, puzzles and warm socks too. 

Squirrel bounding snow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4982b)  

Painting Year in Review: 2025

With another big year of watercolour painting nearly over, its time for the 2025 year in review. I started a new page summarizing years in review with links. Its an annual showcase of my best artwork and progress as a part-time artist. Earlier in the year, I discovered an old shopping mall slated for demolition. As seen in the painting above, I went back to the location and painted the demo-mall east entrance in winter, it is one of my favorite paintings of the year. I returned many times, for instance, to paint the Dépanneur, and when it was finally demolished.  

 

 

Another location I discovered was a small clearing by the Turcot interchange overgrown with grass and trees, which I nicknamed the Twisty Groove, as seen above. I went back several times to paint flowers and butterflies, and a study of a ventilation duct and fallen tree embracing each other. You can see graffiti up on the highway structure, in fact, I spent quite some time visiting graffiti locations and painting watercolours (no actual graffiti though!). A few good graffiti paintings include the graffiti tunnel in Hochelaga, and an abandoned factory I nicknamed the Zen Factory. 

 

An unfortunate trend is wild fires, which devastate the heartland of Canada, and spread thick smoke across the country. I got this view of  a tangerine sun setting on a hazy horizon, framed by construction cranes. There were several intense paintings including a hazy day on the Decarie highway, and thick smoke enveloping Montreal. It was so profound that I made adjustments to my Summer palette to account for the amber and orange tints. 

 

I was very fortunate to make quite a few paintings this year, and even increased the average size from 5 x 7" to 6 x 7.5" which may not sound like a lot but its 50% bigger, plus I did more 8 x 10" formats. I even set a personal record with 21 paintings in one day, all location painting primarily on the south shore. You can see one of the Champlain bridge above, and a summary of the trip in the Green Spot Restaurant blog. 

 

The World Inspired Landscapes series was finally completed, it consists of original paintings inspired by countries of the world. You can see the entire series which began in 2020 on two pages for countries  Afghanistan - Liberia and Libya - Zimbabwe. The series concluded with Zimbabwe, designed with a mosaic of styles, as seen above. Other highlights were a painting of sea-grass in Solomon Islands, a currency-themed Trinidad and Tobago, a luminescent Ukraine, and a rainy Great Britain. 

 

My new Curio Folio series began with an honest depiction of a petrified pop-tart unearthed by archeologists. Many paintings would fill the Folio including a not-so-popular bubble chair, a tasty experimental pizza-tomato, and a scientifically accurate amoeba canis, as seen above. It was a true and real micro-organism that I observed in the research laboratory one day, it happened to look like our favorite dog Davidson! If you don't believe me, then you have to read the blogs for further evidence. 

 

 

Sunset views were aplenty this year, for example Belvédère Outremont sunset as seen above, yellow-orange light on the Lachine canal, a pastel sky on Maisonneuve bike path, a glowing red-orange sunset on the Turcot interchange, an intense sunset on Lachine canal, and many more. Speaking of sun, there were a few neat sunflower paintings such as sunflowers in Cabot square. 

 

 

Night scenes are some of my favorites, they are called 'nocturnes' to sound fancy. Seen above, is a cool view of downtown Montreal, that's Place Ville Marie with its spotlight creating night lights over the Lachine canal. Other good night scenes included a frosty three quarters moon over Campus, a tasty moon over Homer's donut store, and a Van Gogh-inspired night sky over autoroute 15.

 

 

As usual, there was plenty of construction in Montreal as seen above,  Dollard in Ville st Pierre, on Courcelle street in Ville st Pierre, downtown on Peel street, and along st Catherine's street with plenty of traffic lights in bright lights big city. Montreal even implemented the Vend-a-Pylon which can sell food and water to cars stuck in traffic. I developed a blend of paints for signs and pylons that I call 'Montreal Orange'. 

 

 

 

Winter is another harsh reality in Montreal. I take pride in foolishly painting on location no matter how cold and miserable the weather is. Here is an iconic scene of ice flows with a view of the Cartier bridge. More good winter scenes included snowfall on Chinatown, a tree near the Lachine canal, a dépanneur buried under snow, some fierce snow drifts in my favorite Coffee Park, and the train yard on a cold weekend.

  

   

There is a small field at the end of Harley street in Westhaven neighborhood. Locals set up chairs there, because there are no parks around to sit. A community group also banded together to protect this small field from developers, so its owned by the neighborhood now. This pleather chair with wild daisies made for a fantastic painting, it was reminiscent of my 2022 chair in a field of yellow buttercups.  I did an outrageous painting of Harley diamonds and truffles, more tasteful neighborhood scenes, a view of nearby Raffi's autoshop with snow covered tires, among others in Westhaven.

 

  

All year I was wondering what would become the best painting. Was it the winter painting of the demo mall, shown at the beginning of the blog? How about the technically sound Dépanneur NDG night neon? Surely, a wonderful painting of Lachine canal on a windy day would get a vote. A painting of delicate cosmos flowers in a gravel field seemed tops. Train over peel and Wellington? The Jacques Cartier bridge lit up? And then I went and painted cool tomato, a still life of a tomato wearing sunglasses, and one of my biggest supporters, my Mom, said it was the best painting I ever did. With that kind of vote, I have to admit she was probably right LOL. In summary, I wanted to thank everyone who viewed the blog or followed Instagram/Facebook this year, it meant a lot to me, and kept me motivated to keep painting. I was glad to provide some entertainment, advice, and maybe inspire a few artists along the way. Stay cool!

 

Still Life: group of plants

Here is a quick painting of a group of plants that we keep by the window in the winter. The one in the middle is a cactus we got a street sale in Verdun many years ago, it started off as one tiny little portion, which grew into this enormous cactus with hundreds of little portions. They fall off and start growing, or can be easily re-potted. Even though foliage looks green, most of the times its closer to yellow. Only succulents or some tropical plants will have truly green leaves. For the painting I used combinations of yellow (PY184), shadow green (PBk31) and green (PG36). The letters and numbers are pigment codes, different companies sell them under different brand names. For example, I have 'bamboo green' from Holbein (PG36), and phthalo green yellow shade (also PG36) from Daniel Smith. Identical pigments despite the differing brand names. 

Group of plants, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4981)

Molisana bakery font

Gloomy weather outside, at least it looked warm and cozy inside of the Molisana Bakery shop on Somereled in NDG. I went in there once but it was more like a social club where the customers and owners chat incessantly and try every type of deli meat before buying anything, so I didn't last long. The roof of the building has the most interesting shade of olive green, I mixed it with the useful perylene black (PBk31) and orange-yellow (PY110). Despite its name, perylene black is a dark green, in fact, Holbein sells it as shadow green. Its an indispensable paint for landscape and city painting. The sign on the other hand is mostly phthalo blue-green (PG7), and I tried to get the sign right after practicing fonts the other day. 

Molisana font, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025  (No. 4971b)

A puzzling planet (reprise)

Based on an older painting called a puzzling planet done in 2010, I created this version with emphasis on the sun effect and simplifying the overall design. To begin, I applied a yellow circle around the sun, then painted additional circles with warm colours while wet, so the paint blended together smoothly. I use the same technique on location, for example in Intense Sunset over Lachine canal. As that dried, I worked up the blocks of colours and shrubbery in the foreground, outlined the character, and adjusted the sun effect with a thin ring of yellow ochre (PY43) to make it pop. Once the painting had a chance to dry, I took the plunge and over-painted the puzzle pieces. The puzzle was warped to the contours of the scenery, and seemed to emanate from the sun. Leaving the buildings, character and shrubbery free of puzzle pieces gave the scene a really surrealistic appearance. 

A puzzling planet (reprise), watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4953b)

X-mas tree and auto shop

Montreal is currently getting blasted by strong wind and rain, its nasty out there! Preferring to stay inside and paint, I turned my chair towards the Christmas tree we have set up in the corner, and noticed contrasts with the cold looking outside view. Its been awhile since I painted the auto shop across the street, so here it is once again. The painting also features our new curtains, Cilei wanted a sap-green, and I found these ones on Wayfair, they have little green pom poms and she seemed to like the idea. It definitely improved the look, and makes a good backdrop for the small artificial tree. By the way, I found that tree in the old condo when I moved to Montreal in 2004 and have used it ever since. 

X-mas tree auto shop, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, December 2025 (No. 3892b)

Still Life: fun with fonts

With the weather continuing to deteriorate, its time for more still life paintings I can do indoors. Its actually not my favorite thing to do, I would rather be out on location, but the results have been decent, and maybe I can do something with it. Certainly it builds up skills, and provides different challenges. In these examples, I grabbed books off the shelf with interesting fonts. The first example is a cook book, it says L'Art de la Cuisine in full. Getting the flowing orange letters against a dark purple background was tricky. You can't over-paint bright orange on top of dark purple in watercolour. 

L'Art de, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4975b)

Here is part of the cover of an old aquarium fish book from the late 1950's perhaps. The cover said 32 pages in colour, which must have been a big selling point back then. You can see from the painting I did, they used yellow, cyan, black and magenta. The green is printed with small yellow and blue dots closely spaced. The book actually (surprisingly) mentioned that you can put LSD in the fish tank to enhance the colours of the guppies, but I have a feeling the LSD was meant for the aquarium owner to take so as to enhance the colour of the guppies. 

In colour, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4975b)

I got a nice book on Hiroshige's series of famous places, it is printed on a very long piece of paper folded up like an accordion and bound in a hardcover, so you kind of unfold it as you read. Its an old-fashioned concept, but done in modern times. The cover has a shimmering blue weave with a silvery decal printed and Japanese symbols which I did my best to copy accurately. I took a Chinese art and calligraphy course as a young(er) man, so that came in handy here even though its Japanese. 

Hiroshige, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4975b)

Finally, this is taken from a cardboard packaging for Lindt chocolate, and I copied a few other interesting fonts, ISBN, and q code in the background. After we eat the chocolate which doesn't take long, I use the package to hold my brushes upright in my painting kit, this prevents the brushes from falling down to the bottom which can be very difficult to recover in the winter on location. Plus it gives us an excuse to buy more chocolate.  

Lindt font, watercolour 4 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4980)

Downtown looking up

The holiday shopping season is in full swing. I got downtown as soon as I could from campus, the weather was unseasonably warm for a change. Painting with just thin gloves and fresh water (salt) was possible today with above freezing conditions. This scene is along st Catherine's street at the heart of the shopping district, on the left you see the Cinema star and red ribbon lit up in neon, while the background shows some of the old buildings looming over the city. The year in review blog is nearly complete, it should be out before we go travelling for the holiday week. And yes, I finished my Christmas shopping!

Cinema star, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4979a)

Still Life: complex things

With atrocious weather, mix of snow and rain, it was more opportunity for doing still life inside the condo. Here are mixed nuts in a tupperware, there were cashews, almonds, spicy peanuts, pistachios, and hazelnuts, all salted. I made most of the outlines first with a paintbrush, then filled in the shapes and surrounding areas, followed by texturing. Its tempting to start with pen or pencil for complex things, but it ruins the edge effects. If pen and pencil are visible in a watercolour, then technically speaking, its called 'mixed media'. 

Mixed nuts, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4976)

This old Chinese food container is filled with bag ties and elastics intermingled. I first painted the outlines of most of the bag ties, leaving gaps for overlaps, then worked in the coloured elastics. Adding pale shadows and dark spots, along with additional detailing helped create the effect. To get a bag tie out of this pile requires chop sticks. 

Bag ties elastics, watercolour 4 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4977) 

Finally, here is a handful of old defunct keys, although one of them opens my parents front door. I wont say which ones in case somebody tries to copy it off my painting. Like, my painting is so hyper realistic you could make a copy of the key! Just looking at it now, and some of the keys actually look hyper realistic, like the bottom left around the key ring, I really got the metallic glare and reflections. I suppose all the still life practice is paying off. I did a set on 'shiny things' awhile back, and the famous 'tomato with sunglasses' more recently. 

Pile of keys, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4978)   

Still life: Christmas decorations ornaments

Going back some time, my Grandmother on Dad's side once had made I believe, these types of decorations you see in the painting, the house in the middle. Its made of cardboard, transparencies, and plenty of sparkles. Actually, this version was made by my mom based on the original design, I have two of them here for Christmas decorations. On the right is a small wooden soldier, probably a dollar store thing, although I could make up a story about Grandpa making these in the old days! He certainly could have, he was a mechanical engineer for trains, and had plenty of woodworking tools. 

Xmas house soldier, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4973)

Here are some tree ornaments with contrasting textures... on the front left the bulb is a metallic-green finish, on the right is a matte green finish, and the star in the background is knitted with yarn. I used several layers on the left bulb using shades of yellow-green, while the right one was done with wet-in-wet technique and darker blue-greens.

Grey and green ornaments, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4974) 

Finally a few more of the wooden toy ornaments, the left is a colourful train with a bear sitting on top, the right is a Santa on a sailboat, with sunglasses that I added to the painting! 

Wood toy ornaments, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4975a)  

Blue sky Sunday, neighborhood scenes

Since the train was going by, I stopped my bike at the old clothing factory that is now a restaurant and condo complex. The structures are seen around the edges of the painting, with the bright sun, blue sky and prominent tree featured as the center of interest. I had to do another painting while this one dried, so that the tree could be painted over top of the sky. 

Sun tree industrial condos, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4964b)

In fact, I did several paintings on this location in st Henri, since the sun was beaming down and I had full light to paint with, which is a rarity these days. Much of Montreal is hidden beneath shadows from tall buildings, but this clearing provides good sight lines and open sky. The train was crossing Courcelle street creating a line-up of cars and a few bikes. 

Cars waiting train crossing, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4954b)

This painting shows an electric charging station and the sound-wall that runs parallel with the train tracks in the background. Enormous piles of snow were piled up here, and a tree leaned out over the pastel sky. 

Electric charging station, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4971a)

It didn't take long for the graffiti people to cover this wall in 'artwork'. As usual, I replaced the actual graffiti names with my own crew, including PJD, D-DAWG, CILS, JD CD, DYER, and FITZ. Being backlit, the shadow from the wall had a prominent blue-violet tint that I made with indo blue (PB60) and magenta (PR122) and a touch of blue saphhire (PB15). 

Train wall graff, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4955b) 

Why do I bother painting on location when that painting of the tomato wearing sunglasses will probably end up being the most popular painting? At any rate, this burned out condo in st Henri had some interesting contrasts, with plenty of snow piled on top. I am not familiar with the story on this particular fire, a quick google search shows a number of major fires have happened in the neighborhood in recent times. Half of the roof had caved in and windows looked pretty scorched. 

Burned out house, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 (No. 4972a)