Throw oneself at the city

After work I got back on the bike fully equipped and threw myself out at the city to see what I could find. Reaching the artificial beach with a view of the Cartier bridge, there were numerous powerboats heading upstream. The blue of the umbrellas is more cyan, I made it with blue sapphire (PB15) and some green viridian (PG7). 

Beach boats and bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Speaking of throwing oneself at the city, there is a zip line in Old Montreal where people can zoom across overhead. In the background there are the circus tents of the Cirque du Soleil. They are showing Luzia, I made a few paintings of the sign and tents during the day and at night. There is not much that I have not painted by now. 

Zip line, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

The sun was setting on Old Montreal, it created some neat tangerine orange highlights and dark browns and greens. I went for an abstract look here. Just behind me was a stage playing country music... it made me want to paint fast, because of the beat, and because its not my favorite genre! There was also a poutine festival going on... that's french fries with gravy and cheese curds. 

Sunset Old Montreal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

The Hungry Painter, old paint shop

As the sun went down near the Domino's pizza up on Cote st Luc road, I caught this view of sunflowers growing out on the sidewalk through the glass door and windows. It was a fascinating scene, the background is similar to a scene I did last year of the sundown in NDG, but with an image of sunflowers in the middle-ground and the Domino's facade in the foreground. As a hungry painter at this hour, the smell of the pizza was fantastic even if it is strictly off of my blood pressure-friendly diet. All in all, this painting has a lot of character... kind of eerie like you expect the sunflowers to be walking down the sidewalk with poisonous barbs or something (referencing the Day of the Triffids). 

Sunflowers through Domino's windows, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Further down Cote st Luc road is Mazzeh, the relatively new hole-in-the wall Persian restaurant that has become a personal favorite. After ordering some kebabs, I went outside and waited... the lady said ten minutes before the take-out was ready, so I had to paint even faster than usual. The painting shows the billboard on the wall, illuminated by a small flood light, you see tomatoes, veggies, chicken and beef kebabs on a charcoal grill. Yes I was a hungry painter, and the kebabs smelled great and once I got home, tasted incredible as usual. They even threw in some free Persian style yogurt. 

Mazzeh Kebabs sign, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

In between the pizza place and the kebab place, there was an abandoned store that looked like it used to be a restaurant, but in fact, it used to be a paint store... like house paint. Ironically, they painted the sign all black, with just fragments of the original font visible. I changed the wording to my initials and the year, with the word 'paint', then painted it over with black. The interior of the store is not visible, it had an empty abandoned look to it. The yellow sign post was all rusted, clearly it needed a fresh coat of paint. 

Painted black, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Before getting to the kebab place I made one last painting at the abandoned paint shop, a challenging scene of a weed, and my bike tire with some trees, reflecting in the glass window. You also see the interior of the shop, and the street, cars and apartments in the background. Since painting reflections, and more reflections, I was thinking about trying a more complex reflection like you see here. It is essentially four paintings superimposed... the foreground, the reflection, the interior middle ground, and the background seen through the glass. Since watercolour layers can be semi-transparent, there is a certain advantage here, but judging the outcome, and gauging the moisture levels is going to take more practice. Now when I ride around I have an eye out for a good reflection. I might go back to this old paint store before they tear it down and do another painting or two. I like to paint things that might not last too long such as an old farm house in Bolton that is now completely gone, and a nearby barn that burnt down, I did a painting before and after the fire (and I had nothing to do with the fire!). More recently I painted the charming Dépanneur Diamond 10 in Lachine which is now just a gravel pit awaiting condo development. 

Reflection of a weed, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Montreal night painting lights and canal

Down near the Atwater market footbridge the light beam atop Place Ville Marie building could be seen over the Lachine canal. With a head lamp I could get the colours and contrasts correct, although the flying insects seemed to love the bright light around my neck. It was still hot and muggy despite the absence of sunlight. 

Beam canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Looking west from the same position gave this view of the canal with all the lights and condos in the background. These condos are actually converted factories, hence the occasional smoke stack. To get the reflected lights I applied the colours first, then painted around them wet-in-wet. It was a tricky effect to get right. The bismuth yellow (PY184) facilitated the signature. 

Colours on the canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

I was down in Verdun to visit Cilei, who is dog-sitting Davidson, her sister lives right next to the station. Strangely enough, the station here is called Lasalle station despite it not being in Lasalle. One of my favorite/best paintings ever was done on this location on a fine Spring day in 2022. It was rather unpleasant here at night so I painted faster than usual. 

Lasalle station night, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

The Bay facade and burger joint at night

Do you ever wonder where pigeons go to sleep? Some of them on the Bay sign apparently, they heard it was going out of business. It was a difficult painting to do at night, I composed the half-circle up and to the right, with the bottom of the painting showing some of the entrance and show windows. Getting the Bay to be somewhat legible seems to have worked out, and you can see the pigeons roosting on top.  

Pigeons on the Bay sign, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

From the colours and fonts you might have guessed this was a Burger King, but tonight it was PJD burgers! It was closed by now, so other than pedestrians around on the sidewalk there was nobody inside the building. I included a tiny sliver of sky and a building up on the top left to give the sense of night time. I also used shadowing on the sidewalk to convey a sense of darkness, with interior light shining outwards. 

PJD Burgers, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

All along the side of the bay is this illuminated overhang, with the full name of the store in yellow font. It said the Hudon's Bay Company in French, but I just abstracted the lettering to give a fell of the colour and contrast. I packed a lot of detail into these night paintings, and of course made a right mess of my palette. A lot of people saw me painting tonight, they all looked with curiosity, what is this guy doing standing next to his bike hunched over a small piece of paper with a brush and palette? 

The Bay overhang, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 

Night paintings along Maisonneuve bike path

Some people might recognize this lamp and pond, its in Westmount park just east of NDG along the Maisonneuve bike path. It was pretty dark by now, but I had the head lamp, and there were a few other lamps nearby providing some light. When painting at night, its important to stay safe by knowing the neighborhood and keeping to well lit public places. The only threat here were the mosquitos but I wore long sleeves, long socks, pants and had bug spray on. A few tried to get me to no avail. 

Lamp reflection in pond, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

There was a noodle shop on Maisonneuve street with bright lights that I could stand by and paint this scene, looking east. At night in the city there are multiple light sources such as street lamps, car headlights, illuminated signs, and interior lights shining through windows. Really bright lights like the overhead lamp have an aura around them too. There was no moon visible tonight,so the sky was an inky purple that I made with the good old combo of pyrol orange (PO73) and indo blue (PB60). . 

Street lamp and cars, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Standing in the same spot but looking across the street, there was a view of the Guy Concordia metro with the blue arrow sign, and many illuminated windows all around. And I got a few bins in the scene too. These paintings look desolate because I edited all the people out tonight, there were in fact quite a few people crowding the sidewalks, although not many cars which was nice. It cooled off slightly but not enough to be comfortable.  

Guy Concordia night, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 

Stinkin' hot day, another reflection

Finding a spot to paint in the shade during lunch hour was not easy, I found a location that was nearly perfect at the corner of Grand Blvd and Maisonneuve next to the bike path. These yellow flowers were in shadow, and formed an interesting silhouette against the brightly-lit asphalt of the road. Getting the yellow shade correct took a bit of fiddling, I used various mixtures of bismuth yellow (PY184) yellow ochre (PY43) and some orange (PO62) and green (PG36). Making dark yellow is tricky, it can lean to the orange or greenish hue depending on the mix.

Yellow flower silhouette, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

It was so hot and muggy that the paint on my palette was turning soft and gloopy. It made for quite an interesting mess to control! Its the opposite to the problem I have in the winter, when the paints turn hard and brittle making it difficult to get colour on the brush. The scene was done on the exact same spot as the previous painting but looking east. The bike path is tucked in between the road and the foliage, it created a good triangle for the composition. 

Bike path parked cars, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Getting back to the PERFORM Centre, aka work, I parked my bike in the shade of the adjacent building, and saw this neat reflection in the glass front of the Centre. The glass has enormous laser-etchings of people making various physical motions, its a type of glass mural meant to convey the sense of human performance. To paint the scene I established the perspective of the building with an outline, filled in the reflected trees and sky, put in the glass support struts, then painted the figures over top. Finally I added a few interior lines to signify the blinds in the windows and a bit of the internal detail. The glass had a strong green-blue tint which I made with a mix of green viridian hue (PG7) indo blue (PB60) and diluted carbon black (PBk6).

Perform Centre reflection, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 

Blue-violet butterflies in the city

After painting the pastel skies and haze around the Montreal skyline, I was going to leave the area... its the narrow ridge behind the hospital that gives incredible views of the city... when I noticed all these little blue-violet butterflies fluttering in among the wild flowers. It was a tough painting to do, the kind you have to hang in there and finish. The background is a cropped version of the Montreal skyline with a prominent traffic information sign over the highway (with my initials of course). The foreground was the center of attention... I painted the pale blue-violet butterflies first with a dilute mix of sapphire blue (PB15) and magenta (PR122), then dabbed in the basic shapes of the coloured-flowers including pink, white, warm yellow, and cool yellow. Each type of flower had a different shape, texture and background foliage. Using a pointillism technique I daubed in the surrounding foliage making sure to leave a few small specks of white, then applied stem and leaf textures. The sooty, charcoal greys and hard lines of the highway and city contrasted nicely with the soft and colourful flowers, foliage and butterflies. 

Blue-violet butterflies in the city, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Pastel sky, hazy Montreal

With lingering forest fire smoke, Montreal was enveloped in a layer of haze that created pastel colours in the sky. Using raw sienna (PBr7, Daniel Smith) I created the warm and cool greys in the background, and dilute pyrol orange (PO73) gave the eerie orange glow on the horizon. The rest of the painting was done with a gradient of hue saturation... that is, greyish in the middle ground, then brighter colours and more contrast towards the foreground. In doing so, the illusion of amber haze is created.

Pastel forest fire sky, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Waking up really early to beat the heat and potential rain, I got these scenes of Montreal enveloped in a thick haze. Yesterday the air smelled of a campfire, I checked the forest fire map and there was a large fire in Moosonee that seems to have dissipated today. This view features a large billboard with my custom message (Peter is here, Montreal), a pastel sky and background, with the highway in the foreground. Making the yellow bright in the foreground created the sense of depth, and gave an odd fluorescent atmosphere to the painting. 

Billboard and haze highway, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

As I wrote in a previous blog, the cause of these fires is global warming due to fossil fuel burning. All around, I heard cars roaring by on the highway, burning fossil fuels of course. Its all cause and effect... heat from the city causes fires in the back 40 (north) like in Moosonee for example, then the smoke blows back on the city. Painting smokey haze and oddly coloured skies is a skillset I never wanted to have, but as an artist, part of the job is to reflect the landscape as it is. (I also do ridiculous abstract paintings too.. so its not all business all the time!). 

Mount royal and foliage, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Sunset on Lachine canal and night scenes

These kinds of paintings will always be reminiscent of Claude Monet's famous painting, "Impression, Sunrise" which was the beginnings of the term impressionism. Here, I depicted the sun setting on the Lachine canal, it was a fiery tangerine orb against a neutral lilac background. In fact, the sun was long gone when I got around to filling in the orange colour, which was done using a mix of pyrol orange (PO73) and orange (PO62). I call that mix 'Montreal orange' because it looks just like a pylon or construction sign, and apparently makes the idea orange for a setting sun a la Monet. 

Sunset on Lachine canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

 

The food festival commenced this weekend, its held annually at the Peel basin on the old loading pier. In the background of course, you see the Farine Five Roses factory, actually Canada Maltage but the sign is still there, protected as a heritage feature. There were three parts to this painting, the top part with the purplish sky and building with illuminated sign and windows, the middle part with the tents and yellow-lit people, and the bottom segment which reflected the scene. It was especially tough since I forgot to bring the headlight, so by the time I finished the painting it was near dark with just a weak amber street light on, so I had no idea what it would look like until now. I got the contrasts really good, which was the main challenge. Speaking of another famous artist, I had Van Gogh's "Café Terrace at Night" in mind for this one, he painted people in front of a cafe at night bathed in yellow light. 

Peel basin party, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

 

On the way back I was hot and exhausted, but then there was a perfect spot to stop and paint the facade of the Bay building downtown. A nearby storefront had such bright lights that I was completely illuminated and could see what I was doing. Meanwhile across the street in the square there was some kind of south American dance party going on, I've seen it before they play music, probably Colombian or Venezuelan, and do Latin American dancing in large groups. It felt like I was in a different country for a little while. I kind of botched the painting, but its such a good spot I would go back next time, probably with a bigger piece of paper. And maybe I'll work on my Latin dance moves too!  

The Bay facade night, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 

Setting sun at train crossing

While painting the setting sun down near the train tracks in ville st Henri, a VIA train went by from west to east. Memorizing its shapes and details I replicated an impression of the train on location, which had green reflections in the windows and some pink colour from the sky. In the background is the flamingo-pink sunset with the elevated highway and train control lights hovering above everything. 

Sunset VIA train, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

At the back of one of the buildings there was a large undulating air duct reflecting orange light from the sun. This contrasted nicely against the brick red which I made with a mix of burnt sienna (PR101) and pyrol red (PR254). When bricks are illuminated by red light they become very intense, like burning embers. 

Air duct sun set, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2025

Before the sun fully descended I did this painting of the tracks with one of the structures next to an exchange. The painting doesn't show it, but the track has a fork here, and that box is connected to a track shifter that would send the train one way or another. It reminded me a lot of my Dad's train set he built, it also has track junctions that are controlled by an electronic switchboard. 

Tracks and switcher, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2025

 

 

Touristy and not-so toursity scenes

Rue st Paul is the main tourist drag that intersects with the iconic Jacques Cartier Place with all the vendors and restaurants. Looking west, this scene depicts the crowd using simplified dots and dashes in a variety of colours on top of a blue shadow. The buildings are various shades of grey and brick colours.  

Rue st Paul tourists, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

La Cave à Manger... the eating cave... had some prominent yellow umbrellas out front to block the strong sun coming across the top of the Bonsecours market. Working up the outline with the sharp new #4 holbien brush, the colours were infused with yellow. Two bins, one for garbage one for recycling sat next to a bench in the foreground. 

Yellow umbrellas Cave, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

After the challenging reflections and complicated urban scenes, these dumpsters were a lot more fun to paint. Its the first time painting yellow, green and cyan dumpsters, to add to the blue, magenta and yellow dumpsters painted earlier in the year. 

Yellow green cyan dumpsters, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 

More reflections, st Denis street

Looking south down st Denis street, the ferris wheel could be seen in the distance, and a prominent street light and window reflecting some trees were in the foreground. Connecting the scene is the street with a little bit of traffic.  

Reflection st Denis street, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

The cinema on st Denis street has art deco styling,  such as the large curved glass feature above the entrance. Shaped like the prow of a ship, it was reflecting some trees and a building from across the street. Inside the structure, some curtains and lights were visible through the tinted glass. 

Reflection cinema, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Looking at this window provided a good view of the cafe across the street in its reflection. A no parking sign, in the typical 'Montreal orange' colour made with the paints called orange (PO62) and red-orange (PO73) anchors the composition.  

Reflection of cafe, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

An indigenous female art collective makes wall murals around Montreal, such as this one on the side of a simple block-shaped building with red bricks. Trees were reflecting in the upper windows. The brick colour was made with raw sienna (PBr7) and pyrol red (PR254) with some burnt sienna (PR101). 

Mural and reflection, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 

This old factory is derelict, it was the subject matter for Zen Factory painted last year. Not on st Denis street, this is near the Lachine canal off of st Patrick street. Most all of the small window inserts were smashed, leaving some shards that reflected the trees growing tall in the vacant lot. On google maps it is called Factory Bando. 

Broken reflections, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025  

Reflections on reflections

Atwater station is located beneath the Alexi Nihon mall, with an exit station across the street on the corner of st Catherine. I was looking west here, catching a view of a waiting bus, some people, and the reflection in the window of the station. Within the reflection was another building with a window that had its own reflection... of another building. Trying to paint scenes like this can be daunting, but today I wanted to push my limits and see what happened. The theme was reflections. 

Bus reflection Atwater station, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

This is the rear wall of the station exit, which has tall reflective glass panels separated by white-grey frames. The shadow of the building was part of the reflection, as were the various trees in Cabot park. Painting in the city is very technical... one thing that helped was a brand new #4 Holbien brush I got last week which still has a sharp tip.  

Rear window reflection, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Earlier this year I made a series of paintings of an old strip mall slated for demolition, I nicknamed it the demo mall. The last store to stay open was a laundry mat, although today when I went by it too had closed for good. An elderly lady came by with her laundry in a wheeled basket carrier, and seemed surprised that it was closed for good. I let her know that the whole building was slated for demolition. She took interest in my painting and seemed impressed, she guessed I had been painting for 15 years, to which I replied, I have been painting for 35 years... but this particular painting was about 20 minutes! If you look closely, there are three images here... the bricks and metal of the exterior, the laundry machines lined up in the interior, and the reflected scene of cars and condos that are behind me. It was mind-bending to paint the overlapping interior/reflection. In fact, I tried two other paintings of this scene in order to trouble shoot on location. I learned a bit more about painting reflections today and will tackle some more next time the opportunity presents itself. 

Demo mall laundry mat reflection, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 

 

Making the cuts, catalogue update

 

Just past the midpoint of the year, hard to believe that time flies! I completed a catalogue update and could tabulate the total number for 2025 to be at least 512 paintings with a few unaccounted for. Keeping up that rate, it would be over 1000 on the year but I usually paint more during the summer and typically slow down in the fall due to teaching and committees. However, those of you who know me, also know that I am on a one year sabbatical from July to July, so I will be travelling a bit more and concentrating on research exclusively. The main thing is to learn more about cancer immunology... that is empowering the immune system to eliminate cancer. With all the painting, I finally decided to give a second life to some of my old paintings... in other words, I selected about two dozen of the weaker paintings that had blank backs and cut them up mostly into 6 x 7.5" and 8 x 10" which are the most efficient sizes. Unfortunately, that meant loosing a few paintings, but I had to ask myself, would I hang these paintings on my wall? Would I want them hanging on my parent's wall? The problem was that I used a lot of alizarin crimson and aureolin yellow both of which fade, and my technique at the time resulted in very bland and greyish paintings that were overloaded with details. I am glad to have cut the paintings up, it freed up some space, and I examined each one to see what could be done better in future paintings. Most cut up paintings were in the doodleism style, which kept me busy and I had fun painting them. In recent years, I refined that style and got better results than the works from about 2005 - 2020. The abstract painting above was recently done on one of the cut-offs, I used the 'earth max palette' which has like 15 different earthy paints and a few synthetic colours. 

Making the cuts, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, July 2025

Here is what is on the back of the previous painting... a piece of 'Attempted Evolution'. There were things I really liked about the painting such as this character and the eyeball in the ground, but overall it would need a re-work, and a re-paint with better contrast and higher quality finish. When I was painting these large doodleism paintings, I knew the backs of the paintings could be used one day if I ever ran out of money. It wasn't money I ran out of, but space! 

Attempted evolution crop cut, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, July 2025

Here is another crop cut of a painting called 'Apple eye Shrimp in the sky' which was a remake of an earlier painting called 'Apple Eye Violet Sky'. It was my 'Magical Mystery Tour' phase of being an artist, like the Beatles Psychedelic period.  If the time, opportunity, and mood presents itself I would pick through these paintings and see if I can make finished pieces. Before you go thinking I cut up all my paintings, I currently have nearly 6000 paintings in my collection, most of them postcard sized, so loosing a few dozen to gain a few hundred in return was great, and the work from the past few months seems to be top notch. There is still a good pile of cuts to paint on, and I have new Arches paper I bought last week. I notice a big difference, in the old days I soaked the paper to remove the sizing, that was based on the advice of a famous painter John Joy. However, the sizing is there to prevent the paint from diffusing into the paper pulp. Quite a few of the old cut pieces were pretty hard to paint on especially in humidity, and there were some strange textures not to mention staple holes. There was one painting where the texturing really helped, it was the elevated train in Griffintown, it was on the back of Tourist Destiny. When I painted tourist destiny I also noticed the weird texture and I believe it was a manufacturer defect. The texturing defect-effect is so cool I wish I knew how to reproduce it for certain paintings. Like in the gravel field yellow flowers I used the grainy cut offs from Tourist destiny and it was perfect for the subject matter.  

Apple eye crop cut, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025

Greenspot Restaurant, record painting count

 

At last, I painted a scene of the Greenspot restaurant which I have painted many times before, its just up the street from Atwater Market. The roof is with a mix of viridian hue (PG7) and phthalo blue (PB15) and some indo blue (PB60), similar to what I used for the turquoise car in Brossard earlier in the day. Instead of Coke on the sign I put my initials. Today, I painted 21 paintings, including several in the larger 8 x 10" format like this one. Its not about the count though, I wanted to finish strong with some quality paintings that meant something. Sure, I could make 50 paintings a day of fire hydrants in NDG but what's the point? Today took several days of preparation that entailed resting the legs, getting the bike repaired, stocking up on supplies, and leaving early in the morning with enough food and water. I hope you enjoyed reading about my Montreal/Brossard adventure today, and I might just take it easy tomorrow. Just noticed I spelled restarant wrong, must have been tired!

Greenspot restaurant, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4326)

Lachine canal restaurant boat and Atwater Market

After getting back over the Champlain bridge and into Nun's island I was pretty beat physically and mentally after many hours of painting in the smoggy heat. Sitting in a cool park bench contemplating the next move and sipping some luke-warm instant coffee, I decided to press on and make some more paintings. Surely I was close to breaking my single-day painting record set last September? Getting through Verdun and back to the Lachine canal, I found this scene of a restaurant boat near Atwater market. There was a lot of detailing in the boat itself, which was crammed with patrons, and more people were waiting outside. It was another reminder of the 2018 trip to Amsterdam where I painted canals. 

Lachine canal restaurant boat, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4574a)

It was kind of neat to be in the zone so to speak, painting smoothly and effectively despite the physical exhaustion. Here is a well-organized scene of a fruit stand at the Atwater market with a few patrons. The watermelons initially caught my attention. I also liked the yellow stripes on the awning. The painting required attention to detail and patience, since several layers of colour and texturing had to be applied to work up the details. 

Atwater Market fruit stand, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4574b)

More free-form, this flower stand was painted by making small daubs with the #8 brush, almost like pointillism. A few forms of people, and the semi-transparent domed roof completed the scene. Considering how messy my palette was at this point, its a wonder the colours came out so well. In fact I brought another palette along with all the same paints, but never needed to use it today. They only colours I had run out of by now were bismuth vanadate yellow (PY184) and shadow green (PBk31). I still had benzi yellow (PY154) and two other greens so it was all good. 

Atwater Market flower stand, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4575a)

Champlain Bridge from the south shore

 

If you are reading my blogs from Saturday July 19th, you might be starting to wonder how many paintings I did today? It was a lot by my standards, in fact I did more than my previous number done in one trip on September 14th 2024. Numbers like this make no difference, the important thing is to be enjoying the craft, and not feeling like its just shoveling out paintings for the sake of paintings. The final tally for the day will be told in a blog or two from now.  

The painting above shows the new Samuel-De Champlain Bridge, which is just called the Champlain bridge by locals. It was built next to the old Champlain bridge which has been all but removed now. Just a few of the supports were kept near the shore, they are turning them into monuments. This view of the bridge was from the south shore, from the aptly named Chaplain Bridge park. By now I was pretty beat by the heat exhaustion and the 22 km trip down to the st Jacques river. Somehow my brush was still moving and paintings were coming out before my eyes.  You can see the Montreal skyline and Mount Royal in the distance under the bridge. 

Champlain Bridge from south shore, watercolour 8 x 10" hot press, July 2025 (No. 4323)

The bike path curves its way under the bridge, then loops around to join a separate structure on the bridge span. In this stylized view, I wanted to catch the s-shape of the bike path, and show the steep incline up the bridge. Where the path seems to end under the bridge, that is were it carries on to the west and towards Park Radisson and the st Jacques river. I was on my way back to Montreal, looking at the bridge. You can see part of the Montreal skyline under the bridge. 

 

Champlain bridge bike path, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4324)

Standing in one of the rest areas on the bridge, which is just a nook with a few benches where people can stop and catch their breath, I got this view looking down on the south canal, it is the active channel that allows passage of container ships. The islands provide sanctuary for birds, and house the massive power lines that supply Montreal. You can see the Cartier bridge off in the distance through the haze.  

Bird Sanctuary south canal, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4325)