Dieppe Park bridge and other views

Usually this location gives a good view of the Jacques Cartier bridge, its the tip of Dieppe park located in the middle of the st Lawrence river. Apparently the entire structure is unsafe, built in the 1960's its crumbling and likely to be renovated soon. Construction teams are working on the entire conduit connecting Old Montreal to the Dieppe park peninsula. I included the fence they put up which prevents access to the concrete viewing platform. The sign meant to say no walking, but it looks like a sloth in my painting... so , no sloths allowed!

Fence Cartier bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

In the background is part of the old port that is still functional, in the foreground is an inaccessible bench behind the construction fence. For the pine tree I applied blobs of yellow and dark green (PY154, PBk31), then over-painted the needles using either dark green on the yellow blobs, or light yellow (PY184) on the dark green blobs. The PY184 pigment is bismuth vanadate yellow, it is very opaque and can sit on top of darker layers. For the trunk I mixed the green umber (PBr7) with violet (PV55), its a mix I discovered earlier in the say while painting the old factory on Miasonneuve. 

Bench fence, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

A bike path goes around Dieppe park, it follows the curves and undulations of the land. I believe the whole peninsula was built in the 1960's from reclaimed land from the Decarie highway excavation. The main reason was to connect the bridge (Concorde bridge) from Montreal island directly to ile st Helen and ile Notre dame where the casino is located, and across to main land Brossard. 

Curved bike path, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

I was thinking of Hiroshige when I painted this one, he was a Japanese woodblock print designer from the mid 19th century. His compositions often contained wild curves and slopes in the foreground. He also used triangles all the time, and liked to put large objects in the foreground such as a horse's ass in one print. I learned a lot from studying his prints, especially the 100 views of Edo series. 

Undulating bike path, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

In the background though all the foliage is the Concorde bridge over the st Lawrence river, in the foreground is the south shore of Dieppe park. Another thing Hiroshige loved to draw (he used a paint brush with ink to do the drawings), were tall, twisty pine trees. One of his famous prints had a looping branch of a pine tree featured prominently in the center of the composition. Here, I saw a similar feature but it was down and to the left of the scene. This painting has a bit of 'group of seven' feel to it as well, they are the famous Canadian painters who I learned about as a young man, and even visited the gallery a few times in Kleinberg. 

Twisty pine trees, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025