Sunflower and mist in Cabot Square

Cabot square is a local hangout and occasional site for festivals and gatherings, its just across from the old Forum building and includes an access point for the Atwater station. These sunflowers are probably nearing the end of their blooms, they were struggling to find enough sun with the tree cover. I composed them to look as if they are jumping out of their box. 

Sunflowers Cabot Square, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

At the center of the square there was a mist machine spraying cool water to help the locals with the oppressive heat. A few pigeons were enjoying it too. I wasn't sure if I could paint this effect because the bakground scenery was quite complex, and and the mist created a pale blurry cloud surrounded by crisp, high contrast elements. I had to paint as much with my brain as my brush which is unusual, I prefer just to use the brush. To finish the painting, I casually walked through the mist cloud with the painting in order to literally get mist on it. I think it turned out all right, and the pigeons didn't mind at all. 

Mist machine pigeons, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

There is a metal box, like a small store front, closed off for now. Indigenous art, probably done by an Inuk artist, adorned the exterior of the box. I saw them painting it a few weeks ago. In the upper left quadrant there was a view of Mount Royal with the General Hospital visible on top. I forgot to paint in Mount Royal though, it is behind and above the hospital. Lately I have been putting a lot of detail in the paintings, such as the Fiat car show in Little Italy. I can do this in the summer when the paint dries and its okay to stand around and paint. 

Painted box view of mount royal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

 

 

Little Italy Fiat show, tomatoes and signs

 Making it out to Little Italy and I found a sidewalk sale/festival with live music, food booths, street shopping, and a cool car show. It was featuring the Fiat 500 model, a common utility car made up until about 1975. They look very small, like they barely stand a meter off the ground and are about 3 meters long. The owners must take really good care of them, they were very shiny and well maintained. I just painted the last three on the row, there were about a dozen lined up beside each other. The cars were a major draw, people were stopping and taking pictures all the time, so I had to find a spot right next to a bike stand behind a tree and look on the angle like this. The sidewalk sale is visible in the background. The painting started with a painted outline using a sharp number 2 brush, then the blocks of colours and textures were filled in one by one. People were stopping and commenting on the painting, so it must be a good one! 

Classic Fiat 500 show, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

I talk a lot about my palette, and the same word is used to describe a wood surface used to move cargo, like the blue ones in the front. When you see that shade of blue, kind of a blue-green, its actually cyan. Cyan is what you see when the blue cone and the green cone are activated simultaneously in the retina. I used phthalo blue sapphire (PB15) and some phthalo green viridian hue (PG7) to make the colour. For the tomatoes, I used a mix of pyrol red (PR254) and pyrol orange (PO73), then perylene maroon for shadowing (PR179). The hard part of this painting is actually the middle ground, I had to fill it with people, produce, and some abstract structural shapes to give the ambiance. 

Tomatoes cyan palette, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

As I looked around for a third scene to paint, nothing was grabbing my attention until I saw this scene of all the signs around the parking area. I instantly thought 'there is your painting' and set about painting the outline for all the signs and the structure. Its not even an exaggeration, the scene was literally just like this, no artistic license needed. One of the most viewed blogs was a similar scene of train crossing signs...Montreal loves its signs especially when it comes to parking. Several apps have been invented to help drivers determine where it is okay to park. 

Parking signs, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Mile End toasty grass

Right around the old warehouse in the Mile End neighborhood, avenue Van Horne merges into boulevard Rosemont which elevates over top of st Laurent street and the train tracks. The city is renovating the whole area around st Laurent street and the highway overpass, for example this triangle of land was turned into a small park area, complete with mounds of grass to sit on. Today the grass was toasty and yellow looking. An airplane went by in the distance. 

Dried grass mound, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Worse than dried grass, now its fried grass. I captured the colour with yellow ochre (PY43), a touch of burnt sienna (PR101), and some shades of light green for the weeds that are still growing. Its easy to see how wild fires start, this grass was dry and crispy looking. The overpass supports have been covered in street art, it looks a lot better in in real life, here I just wanted to get the flavour of the colours and patterns, along with PJD on one of the posts. 

Fried grass next to overpass, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

There is a difference between street art and vandalism. This water tower is an iconic structure that defines the entire skyline of the Mile End neighborhood. I moved there in 2004 originally, and not once was there any graffiti on the tower. Now its all over the top and front of the structure. I decided to paint it real quick,  mostly because there was a shady spot to stand and nothing much else to see. I hope the city can do the right thing and clean this up, and better yet, make some plans on what to do with the structure. 

Vandalized water tower, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

The real sturgeon full moon

Today, August 9th,was the official full moon, its called a 'sturgeon moon' since those fish apparently are abundant at this time of year. They could call it a 'pylon moon' instead, because construction pylons are abundant at this time of year too. Using my shoulder bag to paint, I set out onto Somerled Avenue hoping to catch a good view of the moon. Since every painting of the moon lately was 'Moon over something' I thought this scene would be neat, its the moon in between wires. Painting the pole and wires elevated the difficulty of the painting. I paint from this spot frequently because the Metro grocery store has strong white lights overhead. 

Full moon between wires, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

 I painted a similar scene of the pharmacy at night back in 2021, so it was interesting to see if I could do any better. The 2021 painting had stars visible, but tonight it was too hazy and no stars were visible. The main improvements here are a better moon effect, cleaner colours, and more elements included in the composition such as the under-hang light, the parking lot lights and the building off to the right with lit-up windows. If you are an artist you know the feeling when you do a painting that is better, then the old painting ends up looking terrible in comparison. Then you wonder if the old painting was terrible to begin with! The pharmacy on a wet night is still my favorite. I enjoy blogging to show all the paintings and write a few things down. 

Full moon yellow sign, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Reggae Festival

The old pier at the Peel Basin is used for food and music festivals during the summer, and this year they let cars park on the open area under the highway. Standing on the east side of the basin looking at the pier, I got a decent view of the main stage and could obviously hear the host talking and the reggae music quite loudly. The show has a long history going back to 2012 apparently, and just came back this year after a hiatus. I did a night painting from the other side when it was the food festival in July. 

Reggae stage, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

The lights and colours of the reggae festival complimented the odd shapes and tints of the condos in the background. I let the music and the aromas wafting over the basin seep into the painting. I mentioned this before a few times... the reason location painting can be better than studio painting is the total immersion in the moment. 

Reggae and condos, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Back on the bike path looking towards the festival, I found this neat scene of the elevated highway with all the pointy tent tops underneath. This Lachine canal and basin has certainly been a boon to the people who make and maintain bridges. The Griffintown condos also make a great background for any painting in the area. Not too many artists feature condos (and dumpsters) quite as much as I do perhaps. 

Reggae under highway, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Searing in the City

Today it was searing hot in the city. I thought about how to convey heat in a painting and tried to just channel it into the painting. In the top left, the sun pierces through a hazy blue sky. Everything else is bathed in an amber glow, like french fries under a heat lamp. I just tried to stay in the shade as much as possible and also wear my boonie hat which covers a lot and has a neck cover. The further away things were, the more grey and hazy they appeared. 

Searing in the city, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Here is a painting of the iconic Farine Five Roses sign, you see why they city has marked it a heritage object. I have practiced painting this sign on location several times this year and each time its gets a little better. At least I got all the letters on there. The corner I was standing on, Peel and Wellington, seems to be one of the hippest corners in Montreal. The old guy painting next to his bike fit right in. 

 Farine and condos, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Looking west along Wellington, there is a prominent new hotel clad in green-tinted glass, its called the Griffintown Hotel. Cars were driving every which way. I start by painting an outline of the streets and buildings then fill in the blocks of colour, and finish with details. The new bike bag worked great today. Whoever designed it really though of everything, its just what I needed to set up my bike-studio. 

Griffintown Hotel, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Toasty grass new bike bag

 

With the arid weather lately most of the grass around the city is a toasty yellow colour. I painted this scene down by the Lachine canal using raw sienna (PBr7) and yellow ochre (PY43) for the grass, with some daubs of green where weeds were still surviving. The pole is a dark neutral yellow with brown and black details. I liked how the dark blue water of the canal was so cool, the perfect contrast to the toasted appearance of the foreground. 

Toasty grass canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Here is a picture of my new bike trunk bag to replace the old one which I had for well over 10 years and it had started to disintegrate.  The new one required a different rack system which took some fiddling to get the old one off and new one on. Its a great product from Topeak, over-engineered as they say with a mechanical track and lock system, and lots of neat features like handles on top and extendable pouches on the side. In all it can hold 20 L of stuff. There is a velcro divider which was perfect for keeping the water cup from spilling. I made a bunch more paintings today with the new setup. Best of all, the zippers opened and closed easily, the old one needed safety pins and the zippers were falling off. I also got a smaller version of this bag which also clips in. 

Full moon over bridge and factory

By the time I got to Mercier bridge the moon was higher in the sky and had much less of a tea-colour by now. Having the chance to look at the full moon as I rode on the bike path allowed me to recalculate the technical approach. Then it was matter of just stop thinking and paint (good advice for any artist). Cars and trucks were zooming by overhead constantly because there is the bridge in front that you see, and another one directly behind me crossing Blvd Lasalle. Its surprisingly difficult to paint a perfect circle with a watercolour brush, especially when standing next to ones bike next to a bike path at night.

Full moon over Mercier bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Here is the last painting of the evening, its one of those scenes where I think 'don't you dare try and paint this'. So of course I had to try, the factory itself is a collage of different shapes, patterns and textures with strong white lights on the inside and outside. The moon was nicely framed by some of the vents and pipes on the roof of the concrete factory. The head lamp ran out of battery power so I had to paint under the LED street lamp of st Patrick street which was kind of weak. It turned out better than I hoped... with dim lighting at night you have to paint more with your brain, and know exactly where the paints are on the palette. Next time I will charge the headlamp before embarking on more night painting. 

Full moon over cement factory, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Full moon over Verdun and st Lawrence river

The full moon on August 9th was known as a sturgeon moon since this kind of fish is apparently abundant, although I did not see any sturgeons tonight. I did get to see Cilei down in Verdun who is still dog-sitting Davidson for her sister. Afterwards, I made a few paintings of the full moon on a muggy evening. At first, I could not see it anywhere, then over my shoulder on Blvd Henri Duhamel I saw it between some of the red-brick condos. The scene captures the brown and green that is iconic in Verdun, along with the tea-coloured full moon still low on the horizon.

Full moon over Verdun, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Next I had the big brain idea to ride west on the Verdun street bike path all the way to the Lachine rapids to see what the reflection looked like on the river. This scene is the end of the Lachine rapids. Where my initials appear would be goat island I believe, with the little rocky outcrops in the rapids. The sounds of geese honking were prevalent here, they seemed to be roosting on the rocks in large numbers. I tried to capture their silhouettes along with the moon light reflecting on the rippling water. 

Moon over st Lawrence geese, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

A bit further upstream and I did one last painting of the moon over the Lachine rapids, by now the air was humid and the painting was a moist mess of a thing that got smudged all over. But the idea is still there. After these paintings, my brain was going a mile a minute (probably from the Brazilian coffee I had an hour earlier) thinking about how to better paint the moon effect which is very difficult to do at night. Most of the scenes were variations of 'moon over something' so I kept going until something good came up. 

Moon over rapids, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Stacks, wood palettes and a flower in parking lot

In the parking lot of the hardware store at the end of Harley street, I found some shade at lunch break to do a painting of these pink sacks of earth stacked on a blue palette. The rest of the scene was hazy and gloomy due to the residual smoke from fires. The pink colour was done with combinations of dark magenta (PV55) and light magenta (PR122), with some dilute red-orange (PO73) on the top where the sun was reflecting. It was tricky to get the shapes and patterns of the sacks to look organized on the palette. 

Pink sacks stacked, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

These wood palettes are stacked up next to the fence which still has the turquoise posts from when it was a reno depot. The two large apartment building on the horizon are on Sherbrooke street and Cavendish corner. Just to the left, unseen, is the community garden. 

Wood palettes and fence, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

This scene reminded me a little bit of the painting I did of Somalia for the World Inspired Landscape Series which featured a flower growing on a sun-baked layer of dirt. Here, the flower was growing over from the community garden into the area with the rusted gate and asphalt parking lot which leads to the hardware store delivery area in the rear. I did the rust effect with a series of earth pigments ranging from yellow ochre (PY43), then burnt sienna (PR101) with pyrol orange (PO73), then finishing with burnt umber and some carbon black (PBk6). 

Maroon flowers rusted gate, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Moon over condo and amber lamp with flies

Heading out late to make a few paintings on a nice cool evening, I found a few scenes just across the street, this one looking back over our condo with the moon overhead. Its almost but not quite full... tomorrow will be the official full moon, well today (Friday) night. To compose the scene I included the pole with bike sign in the foreground... it was reflecting the red light from the huge Metro sign on the front of the grocery store (which is behind me). It took awhile to build up the scene, someone stopped by and asked what I was painting and said cool idea, good luck. They must have been an artist since only an artist would appreciate the need for luck in a painting. 

Moon over condo bike sign, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

The front of the grocery store has several bright LED lights that appear white, almost greenish, while the side has a strong amber floodlight overhead that bathes the parking lot, shrubs, and house in an orange-yellow tint. I had to use a different colour scheme for the left and right sides of the painting... mostly variations of grey, black and white on the left, with variations of orange, olive and brown on the right. The flood light is at the top middle, it had a cloud of insects in front of it, like little stars swirling around in the inky purple sky. Since there is no white paint in watercolour, the white lights you see, and any light highlight including the flies, are mostly the paper showing through, with some orange tint for the flies. 

White light amber light, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

To better capture the cloud of flies I did one last painting, this time a close up, and using a different technique. Here, I applied the orange tint first, in a cone shape emanating from the lamp, let it dry while I worked on the last three letters of the sign (Metro), and then over-painted the purple sky leaving little open areas for the flies. I left a few flies totally white for extra pop. It resulted in a more accurate depiction of the fly effect as compared to the previous painting. It seemed impossible to paint a cloud of flies at night near an amber flood light until now. 

Cloud of flies amber light, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Joan of Arc Garden Quebec City

In Quebec City on the Plains of Abraham, there is a lavishly decorated area called Joan of Arc Garden. I was there a few years ago, 2023 and made a painting or two of this garden.This painting is a re-composed version done from the location painting, some google research and a bit of memory. It was a gift for a graduating student Mehri, who is now at McGill University after graduating from Concordia with her PhD degree. In 2023, we were all at a conference in Quebec City, and while I was waiting for my Hotel room, I walked around this garden with my luggage in tow. Surprisingly, I ran into Mehri and her Husband who were at the conference, and we had a little chat. So the painting is a memory of that time, and I included my red luggage at the bottom right to tell the story. The luggage also holds the composition on the bottom of the painting. I worked out the composition in advance with sketches, the positioning of the path and stairs was tricky because the idea was to feature the lush flower bed and landscaping. It was meant to be like a bouquet of flowers but in landscape format, with a piece of luggage. Its always a little intimidating to make a gift for someone and then reveal it for the first time in front of a table full of people eagerly anticipating. Mehri seemed to like the painting, which was in a Deserres frame, so it went off well enough. 

Joan of Arc Garden Quebec City,  watercolour 12 x 15" watercolour paper, August 2025

Plamondon Station at dusk

Getting out in the relatively cool evening to make a few paintings, I found myself up at Wasserman forest, but the sun was too far down to go into the forest. I turned north west and found the Plamondon station, on the corner of the busy Van Horne and Victoria intersection. I caught a good view of the bus parked at the station, with a pastel blue-orange sky in the background. At this time of day you can see the headlights on the cars piercing the gloom, as seen on the left part of the painting. I have gotten better at painting that headlight-effect over the years its a tough one to get the hang of. 

Bus at dusk Plamondon Station, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Because of the extensive wildfire smoke still lingering over Montreal, the moon had a strong tea-coloured tint that I replicated with a mix of yellow (PY154), orange (PO62) and raw sienna (PBr7). To do this painting, first I established the medium value blue sky using blue (PB15) raw sienna (PBr7) and magenta (PR122). Important for the effect, are the three white lamps in the center and lower right... they provide the necessary contrast to make the moon really look tea-coloured. The trick with this painting is that everything has to be done in one pass, no mistakes or fiddling. If the sky is incorrect its not possible to fix, same with all the light highlights. I will put another painting I did last week to show how it can go wrong. By the way, on August 9th Saturday there is going to be a full moon, I am already hoping to make a night painting trip. 

Tea moon, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

This painting was actually from last week, I didn't post it at the time because there were a lot of paintings, and this one was a bit of a fail. It wasn't a good corner to be standing at for the time of day so I hastily tried to finish and move on. The funny mistake was that the moon was visible in the sky, but I painted the blue over the whole surface, just leaving an oval for the street lamp. So I tried to turn the street lamp into the moon, then changed my mind and made it back into a lamp. There was a huge pile of rubble on the bottom left where they had demolished half a block. In fact, the Archambault store is closed, but the city said the sign has to stay up because it is so iconic to the corner (Berri and St Catherine).  

Archambault sign on st Catherine, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025  

 

 

Curio Folio: Odd Glasses

And now for something completely different, as Monty Python used to say. When I was painting around the train tracks during a sun set last month, I noticed some very odd looking glasses. In fact, if you go back and check the third painting in the blog called Tracks and Switcher, you will see these odd glasses sitting next to the train tracks. I bet you didn't notice them the first time you saw that blog. For posterity, I made a painting of the odd glasses and at first did not think much more about it. Certainly, the glasses were not odd enough to belong in my Curio Folio, a collection of oddities that no person has ever seen before. Perhaps these glasses had been melted in the sun, or run over by the train, or part of some art installation. Yet, they had a manufactured look to them, nothing was bent or warped or in any way damaged, in fact, these glasses were custom made for someone, or something. There was an air of familiarity about the shape of these odd glasses, like a vague memory or a sense of déjà vu. If there was one clue to be had, one of the screws holding the arm of the glasses appeared to be loose. 

Then it dawned on me, in a flash of inspiration I knew who lost these glasses.... scroll down 

 the...

 

Train Gremlin!  

 

In a rush of excitement I carefully painted the outline of the train Gremlin, which is a creature that I thought I saw on the train, you can click the link above to see the painting. As you can see here, the odd glasses are a perfect fit for the train gremlin, its one eye dangling down is covered by the lower lens, and the bent arms of the glasses fit its pointy ears perfectly. It must have lost them while crawling around on the train.  And now the screwdriver that I saw the train gremlin carrying makes sense. I thought it was trying to sabotage the train, because that is what gremlins do, but it was just trying to tighten the screw on its glasses before they must have tumbled to the ground in ville st Henri. Mystery solved, and another fine addition to the Curio Folio:

Curio Folio: Odd Glasses, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Pink house orange sky Lachine canal

The pink house sits atop an abandoned malt factory... its actually some kind of control tower that some local artists painted pink and added green shutters, flowers, a door. It looks terribly dangerous to be up there but today when I was painting I noticed at least two people sitting in chairs on its roof, apparently having a beverage and taking selfies. Today was a surreal day... an orange sky from the wild fire smoke, and people walking around on top of the old malt factory. 

 

Over the pink house, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

 

In this view, you see the whole factory across the canal with the pink house on the center column, and the adjacent red house to its right. I noticed more people coming out of the red house, and the people atop the pink house started walking around and posing. If anyone fell off it would have been over, that is like 20 stories high up there. Its fenced off poorly, so people can easily get in. To make matters worse, there is a beer patio (st Ambroise brewery) right next door. 

Orange sky over malt factory, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

 

Further down at Atwater market, there was this neat scene of the orange sun reflecting in the canal. The rest of the canal was a weird neutral mauve, I made it with dark blue (PB60) and burnt sienna (PR101). To compose the scene I included a segment of the canal fence in the foreground, part of the restaurant boat in the background, with some people sitting on the wharf to its left. 

Orange reflection in canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Surreal or real? Fire smoke orange sky

Last month I wrote about the fire smoke palette, where I made some adjustments to account for the amber tint from wild fire smoke. Today the smoke cover was extremely heavy in Montreal, it was so dense that the sky looked overcast despite the absence of clouds. I set out around mid-afternoon, and the sky was already looking like a peach-orange sunset. For this painting, I used the full range of the smoke palette to evoke the thick amber atmosphere and its surreal effects on the landscape. With orange-yellow light, the blues turn grey, and greens tend to pop out more. The brick red walls seem to glow. 
 

Orange sky warehouse flowers, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, August 2025

This location represents the last remnants of Otter lake, which was drained in the 19th century to make way for highways and the Lachine canal. Its just a drainage ditch now but I like to make paintings of it for posterity. It was the first painting of the day, I was not quite aware of the smoke warnings, although earlier I noticed that the light coming in the apartment was orange-yellow. The horizon had a dirty orange tint, while the upper sky was a pale, neutral blue-violet, almost grey. 

Remains of lake haze, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Here is a view next to the canal bike path, you can barely see the downtown city scape on the horizon, and the light/shadow effects were bizarre. Normally, shadows are infused with blue at this time of day but today the shadows were dusty light purple, and the white highlights had orange tints. I used a lot of the raw sienna (PBr7), yellow (PY154) and orange (PO62), and the bright yellow (PY184) for pops of colour. Yellow ochre (PY43) was used to neutralize and tint the shadows and grey areas. 

Loading docks haze, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Along the Lachine canal there are what I call 'hybrid trees', they have a vertical bark skin on the bottom, but more of a horizontal, birch bark pattern on the top. Today, the orange light cast an eerie glow on an already eerie tree. I went with the surrealist vibe here and embellished the highlights to create the spectacle. While these paintings are slightly exaggerated, looking at them now reminds me of the reality. Its like something for real that belongs in my curio folio collection.  

Hybrid tree orange sky, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

 

Curio Folio: D'Oh Moon

Believe it or not, I went out to paint a picture of the waxing gibbous moon tonight but instead I saw the most unusual thing in the sky. The moon was partially covered by a rare comet called Simpson's 56223 which only orbits earth once every 310 years. The Simpson's comet is unique in that its surrounded in an elaborate halo of sprinklets... that's the technical word for small debris that orbits a comet, kind of like sprinkles on a donut. I thought this painting would make an excellent addition into my Curio Folio, a collection of oddities that no person has ever seen before. I was lucky enough to be standing there at the exact moment that the Simpson's comet and its halo of sprinklets passed between the moon and the earth, creating the fantastic eclipse-effect you see in the highly accurate painting. I also took a picture with my smartphone camera but it turns out that the combination of comet aura and partially eclipsed moonlight can not be photographed with conventional camera technology. So this painting is perhaps the only image of what many astronomers call the D'Oh Moon, at least for another 310 years. 

Curio Folio: D'Oh Moon, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

Bellechase bike path, dépanneur, construction

The Bellechase bike path runs north of the train tracks, it goes along Bellechase street all the way past Maisonneuve park. Today I got about halfway along the path, but without my tube repair kit (I wasn't expecting to go so far) I turned around for fear of a flat tire. My tires are actually fantastic, I got the teflon ones that cost a lot but nearly never get flat. Even so its nice to have a tire change along with me just in case. There wasn't much to paint along Bellechase, so I stopped in some shade and painted one of the many corners where they installed flowers, in this case, tiger lilies. Completing the composition is a red stop sign, and a school crossing sign in neon (PY184, dab of PG36). 

Tiger lillies signs, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

You know I like to paint convenience stores (Dépanneur in Quebec french) but it has to have some kind of unique story or feature. This one had an outrageous (tacky) green facade with red paint and signage, and a sloping roof. It was fun to paint although the traffic here on D'Iberville street was pretty heavy. 

Dépanneur Laura, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Even the construction is stylish and colourful in the Plateau. They are tearing up parts of the bike path, you see the crumpled asphalt and yellow paint, but the interesting part were all the construction markers. Pink fencing, blue and white barriers, and orange pylon poles with magenta bases. A couple of people went by and probably wondered what I was painting. So was I. 

Colourful construction, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025 

 

Finally, on the way back I stopped in the Mile End neighborhood, my old haunt. There is a lady there who owns a whole block of Bernard avenue, she uses the storefronts and sidewalk to sell flowers in the summer. Paintings like this have a lot of detail, its a little bit like doing a puzzle, I have to paint it piece by piece and hope it all fits together. I was actually looking for flowers today and found quite a bit of subject matter to paint in this scene. If I feel up to it, I may go paint the moon tonight. Yesterday it was half moon, today it is waxing gibbous (sounds like a rock band).

Wall of Flowers, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025  

Laurier bike path, yellow and turquoise

The Plateau is a sprawling neighborhood to the north east of down town Montreal, as its name suggests, the Plateau is very flat. They installed a dense network of bike paths throughout the area which is nice when I get the chance to go out there and ride around. Today I went east on the Laurier path to Papineau, then switched to the Bellechase path. Finding subject matter is not easy, there is a lot of residential and light commercial with plenty of roads and cars. One neat thing about the Plateau is the people who live there are very adamant about their community... when a vacant lot comes up they fight to prevent condo developments. For instance, this old lot was turned into a minigolf course with flower boxes. Its called Minigolf des Jardins Petit Laurier. The yellow metal box was reflecting light and textures from its surroundings. 

Yellow metal flower box, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

Just to the side of the minigolf there was a 'green alley' (rue verte) where the city comes in and installs planters and takes out some asphalt to grow plants, trees and flowers. Some artistic local painted the top of this sun-bleached tree stump turquoise. Everything else in the alley was neatly manicured and stylish. 

Turquoise stump, watercolour 6 x 7.5" rough press, August 2025

The turquoise theme continued with this scene of a car wash on Papineau. I noticed that the small sign to the left of the main sign said 'Terrain a Vendre' which means land for sale. Of course, the developers want to raze the car wash and put up some condos here, but I wonder if the locals will try to fight it. It would make a good mini-putt golf course perhaps. Most of the paintings today were on 300 lb rough press, the back of an old painting I cut up. I kind of like the added texture for certain scenes. 

Car Wash Papineau, watercolour 6 x 7.5" rough press, August 2025