Autumn downtown Montreal part 2

Finding autumn colours in downtown Montreal involved looking around the overpass and underpass areas where hills of natural growth are allowed to grow. At the Lucien-L'Allier underpass there were a variety of lemon/lime, orange and olive coloured trees with a few pops of red. Most of the scene was occupied by the undepass, there is a train line and passenger waiting platform on top, with rows of skyscraper condos in the background. Its a neat scene, you really feel like you are right in the heart of downtown Montreal. 

Lucien-L'Allier underpass, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Along rue st Jacques there was a large Community garden with planter boxes, shrubs, trees and all sorts of things. Most of the plants still had leaves on them, with various shades of olive and orange. In the background, the glass skyscrapers provided some cool colours like minty green, purple, and blue-violet. 

Community garden in the city, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Under the elevated highway there are hundreds of graffiti pieces, including the good old PJD25. If you read the Montreal local news, you may recall a story from the past few years about evicting the tent community from under this highway. Sure enough, it is completely devoid of people or tents as you see in the painting. The city said the evictions had to take place due to planned construction, but there was in fact no such construction, it was an excuse to send them packing. Now, the tent encampment moved out to Ville st Henri near the train tracks. 

Vacancy under highway, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Autumn downtown Montreal part 1

For the first of November there sure are a lot of autumn colours to paint. The trees have some variety of orange, red, yellow, olive and brown. In the painting, you can see the route 136 underground highway exit tunel onto Rue de al Montagne. It looks like I am standing in the traffic, but there is a large grassy area next to the sidewalk with good places to set up the bike/art studio. Most people see me and think I am a traffic cop. The retainer wall is a popular graffiti spot, so I added my initials and year, PJD25. 

Rte 136 exit tunel, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Here is another view of the exit tunel, I am standing up on the hill near the dog park looking east. This wall was also very popular for graffiti, according to some old photos I found on the internet. In the old photos, the background was much different, there were old warehouses, coverted lofts and triplexes, all of which were razed to make way for the huge glass skyscraper condos. In real life, this wall was completely clean, the city paints it grey to cover graffiti, but in the painting I added the crew: SODAX, DDAWG with a paw print, and PJD25. 

Clean graff wall, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

This decripit parking lot and old construction trailer are all the remains of the old pre-gentrified neighborhood. Sparrows were chirping noisily and flitting around the twigs and foliage, expecting me to throw them some food I suppose. In the background, you see the big Hockey arena on the left, and two of the big glass towers on the middle and right. A tipped-over pylon completed the scene. More graffiti from the crew was here, including CILS, FRITZ, JD, and CD !  Considering that today is the big baseball game (Jays v Dodgers game 7 World Series), maybe I should have put Blue Jays here instead of sparrows?

Sparrows on twigs, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025