Autumn colours and then some in China Town

There really wasn't much colour to find other than this one type of tree that was turning yellow-orange-olive. To compensate, I found a place to stand on the main drag in China Town, De la Gauchetière. A popular restaurant called Restaurant Jade had orange and red signage, with magenta brick on the second level. Bright red lanterns adorned the tree, which was a mix of lemon and lime. The entire tree leaves were painted over top using dark paint, and bismuth vanadate yellow (PY184) mixtures. 

Restaurant Jade, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

This fancy Chinese-style pagoda lines a small public square where people were doing tai-chi exercises. The lack of red and orange in the trees was made up for by the orange, brick-red and yellow highlights of the pagoda. Again, I overlaid the tree, this time using the negative space technique. That's were you leave the paper blank where the tree needs to go, then fill it in last. Hopefully we get some real autumn colours soon, but tomorrow calls for a hot, summery day instead. 

Pagoda tree lanterns, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025 

Autumn public service vehicles

Looking hard for some autumn colours, I finnaly found some down at the Quartier Spectacles... these trees were a neat yellow-orange with olive highlights, the ambulances were a brilliant neon green, and the tail lights on the cop cars were red. The brilliant trees were also reflecting in the windows of the cop cars. Okay, police cruisers is the formal name, although here they are PJD cruisers. That's one thing the graffiti artists can't tag... cop cars, but I can with my paintings! 

Yellow trees cop cars ambulances, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

The entire street of Bleury had several dozen cop cars and ambulances lined up. In the background, a glass building reflected more buildings and trees that were behind me. After doing the painting, I walked down the sidewalk with my bike and found out the reason for all the attention. Cops were standing around in groups on the sidewalk and having coffee and socializing with each other, meanwhile at the corner with st Catherine, people with a U Haul moving van with speakers attached to the top were unloading signs and Palestinian flags, getting ready for the weekend protest.

Yellow tree ambulance cop cars, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Sunset treeline

After painting a few scenes on location including moon over the gravel pit, the sun finally set on the treeline. That treeline used to be the edge of a lake, and the lake would be literally where I am standing. Now there are highways and bike paths, and hopefully some re-naturalization efforts the city will do to bring back nature. Earlier in August, I did a painting on this location during the wildfore smoke, and it was an eerie yellow glow. Today the sunset was powerful and colourful, emanating rings of yellow, orange, red-orange, magenta, pale cyan and blue. Applying paint quickly and keeping moisture the same allowed the colours to mostly blend together. In the foreground, there is some grass, and a bunch of small trees that are growing at the edge of the bike path area. That factory is still operational, I painted the smoke stacks last using a very small number 2 brush in order to catch the detailed contrast and orange tints. Finally, I initialed using a mix of yellow ochre (PY43) and burnt sienna (PR101). 

Sunset treeline, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

To avoid cluttering up the blog I omitted the sunset pigments... here they are! 

yellow (PY154)

orange (PO62)

red-orange (PO73)

magenta (PR122) 

pale cyan (PG7 +PBR15 dilute)

and blue (PB15 dilute slightly neutralized with PO73)

Sundown on the canal yellow-orange light

I got down to the canal path before the sun went down and made a few more paintings of the scenery, including this twisty tree and some sumac bushes in the foreground. In the background, there is a communication tower, and some industrial buildings. I used a lot of orange-yellow (PY110) and orange (PO62) in the mixes, both paints I have are made by Schmincke brand.  

Twisty tree sumacs, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Doing this painting was fun, at first I was not sure about the composition, but the subtle angles and the Lachine canal cutting across the middle seemed to work. The paint also dried sufficiently to do the complex overlays and texturing. Copious amounts of yellow, orange and earth pigments were used. My palette is generally very warm, that is, yellow to red colours, which played nicely into this particular scene. The cool water helps balance all the olive/orange tints.  

Yellow-orange light Lachine canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

I've painted the moon over a lot of things like bridges, pizza shops, and a donut store. This time, the sky was still pale blue and the moon was over a gravel pit that was catching the orange light from the sunset. Gravel tends to be a neutral greyish red, so it reflected quite a bit of red light. The tall trees were also catching some yellow light at their tops. Painting the moon when the sky is blue is actually harder than it looks, I had been thinking about how to best do it and made some adjustments this time. Still not quite perfect but I will try again next chance. You can see another attempt of moon in a blue sky here. But my favorite one was done early last winter of the moon over train tracks.  

Moon over gravel pit, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025 

Sun going down Lachine canal

Cars were zipping over the bridge, and perpendicular along st Patrick on the other side of the Lachine canal. I've painted this scene many times with the billboard, partly because this is about as far as I can get in the winter when the bike path freezes over. The sun was almost down at this point, which created a light orange glow on the horizon. 

Bridge billboard canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

These sumac trees were changing all sorts of colours, but I ran out of bismuth vanadate yellow on the palette and could not quite complete the effect as planned. Its a good location though, and easy enough to get to from the canal bike path. I was having all kinds of trouble with the paintings today for some reason, it seems the seasonal changes always brings about challenges, so I'll go ahead and blame it on the weather! 

Red lights red sumac, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025 

Dépanneur dog and factory scenes

A stray dog trotted by as I painted a picture of the Dépanneur st Henri, as if it had just exited the store. The store was a true corner store, on the corner of a dense triplex that extended down the block in both directions. Apparently its graffiti town, and the store front had been marred by scribbles and scrawls.  

Dépanneur dog, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

A factory was long ago turned into condos, and on the other side which runs along Courcelles, there is an artisanal donut store and fancy restaurant. The factory was much longer than the painting shows, I had some trouble scaling it properly onto the small format. 

Factory and bins, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

It was tough to get a good angle so I tried standing near the sidewalk but messed up the perspective. I do like the shade of orange in the shadow areas. Its a massive factory complex, worth a painting or two. After a bit of internet sleuthing, this is the old Tooke Brothers clothing factory built in 1899, and enlarged around the 1960's, now its called the El Pro lofts building. I saw some examples of their clothes on the internet, people are still selling them as vintage products, a tie was going for $65! 

Factory angles, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Fire station sunset

A chilly wind brought in the month of October. I found myself up on Côte Saint-Luc picking up some Persian-style kebabs at Mazzeh, and made a quick painting of the fire station on the north side of the street. The sky was painted first so that it could dry, then I worked on the driveway and structure of the station. As the sky dried I overlaid the silhouette of the trees using a mix of carbon black (PBk6) with dabs of green (PG36) and yellow (PY184). Then I could put the fire truck in, and over-paint with the garage door window frames. Lastly, some colour highlights in the flood lights, yellow posts, and fire hydrant between the two doors. 

Fire station sunset, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025