Frédéric Back Park, Autumn Views

When I was looking into places to see the stars in Montreal at night, I read about Frédéric Back Park up in Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension. I rode my bike there today and made some paintings of the unusual landscape and scenery. This park used to be a massive quarry which became a landfill for Montreal's garbage for decades. It has now been covered up and a park was built. Dotting the landscape are these spheres with one quarter cut out, a glass window on a curved door invites you to look in. In fact, they mowed paths so that people can walk up and look and take pictures. I put a yellow smiley-face behind the glass window to suggest someone is in there!  I got that idea from my Lemon Sunset abstract paintings, but the rest of the scene is pretty much how I saw it. Planes were going by on their way to land at the airport. 

Sphere and plane, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Here is the view that welcomes you upon arrival to the park from Rue Paul Boutet. The trees were all manner of yellow, with a bit of red and olive mixed in. I used a lot of Bismuth Vanadate yellow (PY184), its an opaque paint good for bright yellow or chartreuse (lime) colours. 

Viewpoint Frédéric Back Park, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Just beside this park is the massive Cirque du Soleil office and warehouse where they presumably make and store all the circus supplies. In the background of this painting, behind the trees you can see part of the structure. I was walking with my bike down this path, when the curved tree caught my attention, it really made the composition work. The quarry wall was done with a mix of wet in wet and dry brush technique. It may look all brown, but I varied the hue angle (colour) of the neutrals according to what I saw. This is a neat one, and reminiscent of Van Gogh's Tree Roots painting which I have always admired and tried to find similar scenes.  

Trees on quarry wall, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

I didn't paint as much as usual last week due to a grant that was due... more of those deadlines! When I got back to the blog, suddenly I have hundreds of views! It seems to have stemmed from the Jacques Cartier night scenes blog, a lot of people looked at that one which feels great. Of course, thousands on thousands of people have probably seen me painting in Montreal as they drive or walk by... I'm the guy standing next to his bike painting out of the rear bike bag. As mentioned, Frédéric Back Park was a landfill, which creates large amounts of methane. To make the area safe for people, they encased these methane pipes in the spheres... there were hundreds of them all over, sitting in amongst some beautiful fields of wildflowers and trees. I may have embellished this one a little... 

Another arrival, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

On the way out I rode around the entire quarry on the bike/walking path and saw this view of the far quarry wall and a very old pylon sitting up on the ledge. There is a fence in between me and the scene which I omitted. Never has one brush stroke been so important in a painting... after doing a thin outline with a paint brush (I don't use pencil or pen at all), then I applied one brush load of pale red-orange (pyrol orange PO73) to the pylon. Since the rest of the painting is brown and dark yellow it is the only source of high-chroma colour (bright). Anyways, I've painted a lot of pylons before but this one might be Montreal's oldest pylon.  

Old pylon quarry view, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025