Over, under and around the City

At the northeast corner of Griffintown there is a tangle of elevated highways, trains and ramps going over, under and around the city. I pasted in a screenshot of the map below, with a red X where I was painting the scene looking due north to the downtown core. It was very quiet here, just the occasional commuter train going by and a few dog-walkers here and there. The painting shows several layers of the city, starting at the bottom, there was a snow-covered strip of land, with tall, dried grass and plants poking through. I painted those last, with a range of ochres and umbers using the rigger brush. Just behind the plants there was an underpass, you can just see the side walls of it covered in snow. The curving road in the middle is some kind of rear-access ramp going up to Bonadventure complex. Behind that is the elevated train, it went by every 10 minutes so I could get the details right. Finally in the background is the Montreal skyline with all of the varied construction styles. Over the decades, buildings went from being made of brick and stone, to concrete, to steel and glass. When the sun went behind the clouds this painting got tough, it was a very complex scene to tackle on a cold winter day and took all I had to stay focused and keep painting. Using the delicate rigger brush on the last step with numb hands (despite the deerskin gauntlets) was memorable to say the least. A rigger has a long (2 cm) and narrow brush that is good for wispy grass and twigs, and it requires a lot of dexterity to use properly. On the way back, I saw another neat scene around here, at the Tech Center on peel there was a view down the tunnel that goes under the city, but I had to keep riding to warm up. At least the bike riding got the blood pumping again and everything turned out well enough.

Over under and around the City, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, January 2025

In the map, you see the location sandwiched between st Jacques, Rue Notre Dame, Peel, and the elevated tramway. I approached from the south, walking my bike up Inspector Street from Mary-Griffin park to get there.