Sports Field Rainy Night

Paint at night, during a rain storm? Why not?! The numerous challeneges of doing a painting like this on location include dressing in waterproof clothes, finding an overhang to block most of the rain, and keeping everthing togther. Just getting the painting home without smearing is a feat, luckily it worked out in this case. To find a spot with enough light I gravitated to the sports field adjecent to the research center, where there were really tall, bright lights illuminating the field. The overhang I found was small and ineffective, but it kept off the worst of the rain, allowing for just a few drops here and there to create the rain effect. So the rain effect is created by having some rain fall on the watercolour while still wet. In 2021, I was caught in a rain storm and made some cool paintings of some condos and cars, and did a few out in the Jarry area. That sky byt he way is indo blue (PB60) and pyrol orange (PO73) an incedible combination. A dab of phthalo blue at the horizon completed the sky effect. 

Sports Field Rainy Night, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Tribute to Scan, a great Montreal writer

On Cabot street, part of the Sud-Oest neighborhood in Montreal, there is a long factory made of cinder blocks that has an enormous mural. It stretches about a city block, and looks to be at least 4 stories tall at least. I've often wanted to paint the scene because it appeared to feature a prominent graffiti artist, there is a large portrat of him holding a spray-paint can at the beginnig of the mural. Today I was on the location and noticed a big engraved metal plaque, the kind you see for historically important locations, and it told the story of 'Scan' who died in 2017, he was widely considered to be one of the greatest graffiti artist of all time and it seemed up to a hundred colleagues from Montreal, Canada and around the world had joined to make this monumental mural. Most of the wall is painted in turquoise, with white outlines and other designs throughout. To tackle such a scene I had to find a composition, and some kind of connection to the landscape... I rarely paint other people's artwork out of respect, so here I intgrated their ideas with my ideas. Graffiti artists put paint on the wall, but I put the wall onto my paintings!

When I saw the saturated red fire hydrant with yellow-green cap and orange-yellow snow marker (when the snow falls this allows the hydrant to be found in the winter if its needed), then I knew it would work, along with the cinder block textures, barred window, and one of many air conditioner units. Painting something like this on location leaves no room for errors, I had to establish the outline with a small brush, then fill in the details before applying a pale yellow wash, letting it dry mostly, then applying the turquoise layer which really pulled everything together. I added the letters 'SCAN' in the center of the composition which is barely discernable, but that was the idea. 
 

If you want to know more, or see the work of Scan, I found a link telling the whole story on a web site called wall-2-wall Montreal. Reading that link, I learned that graffiti artists prefer to call themselves 'writers', and they produce burners, tags, and throws. I don't know what those words mean but I'll look into it. Hey, if there were ever a wall to paint on (legally) I would be up for it. Check out The End of Art is Art (Ecipse Flowers). I did meet a 'writer' once, he was walking along the train track path when I painted Train Crossing, in fact, he talked to me for awhile and admired the painting and told me he paints on walls, I had included him in the Train Crossing painting, just a simple blue-clad figure in the distance. 

Tribute to Scan, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Urban Montreal: Rue Cabot area

For some good scenery of urban Montreal, rue Cabot is an accesible location just off of the Lachine canal bike path near the Passerelle Côte-Saint-Paul bike and pedestrian bridge that runs next to the highway. For this painting, I captured the Lachine canal with its famous black railings, with elaborate concrete-work and pigeons. Oh yeah, and a few autumn colours with a yellow and a red tree growing out of the old stone wall of the canal. As usual, I converted the local Graffiti into my own initials and year (PJD 25). Its kind of fun trying to emulate graffiti artists, their work (vandalism) can be very elaborate. In doing so, I get to be a graffiti artist without wrecking anything! 

Yellow green and turquoise, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

As most Montrealers in the area know, some intrepid artists painted part of the old derelict malt factory pink with green trim. I did a good one on that location of the Old Canada Malt Silos, albeit without a view of the pink house. And earlier this summer, rather incredibly, I saw people sitting on the roof of that thing driking beers which seemed absurdly dangerous.  

Pink house blue-green factory, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Most of the autumn colours are dark yellow, olive, brown and maroon this year, no spectacular oranges or bright reds. To make up for it, as you can tell from reading the blog post, I found colours elsewhere, like this giant violet graffiti tag. Its part of an abandonded factory that the city is planning to develop into some kind of urban resisdential area. I painted this location a few times, for example I did an interpretive painting on location last year called Zen Factory. 

PJD in violet, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

The whole area around rue Cabot, which I believe is part of the Sud-Ouest (South-West) neighborhood, are factories and warehouses with just a few houses here and there. It seems to be a graffiti hotspot, with many colourful tags, and entire walls covered in street art. The rear side of this factory was a fascinating tapestry of shapes and textures. It must have had large windows at one time that were mostly boarded up and painted over. Multi-coloured bricks were plastered with bubbly graffiti tags in blue, green, yellow, pink and black. I painted fast here because dry dirt was blowing and it didn't seem to healthy to be standing around for too long. Usually we only get dry dirt clouds in the Spring, but worry not, there are like 7 days of rain predicted for us. 

Rear Factory tapestry, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025 

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

Belvédère Outremont sunset view

To better paint the night sky including moon and stars I did a little reading on astronomy and stargazing in Montreal. The fact is, Montreal is in a high 'light pollution' area rating a 9 out of 10 on the scale, making it one of the worst places to see stars at night. But local astronmers listed two locations where the view was a bit better including this spot, called the Belvédère Outremont, and the large park that used to be a landfill in the north east of town (Frédéric Back Park). Today I went to Belvédère Outremont after work and found a large clearing with rock slabs, chairs for lounging, and a wide open view to the west northwest direction. Its one of the few places that the city clears trees around the mountain, so as to not block the view. Several people arrived and snapped some pics with their smart phones. 

West view sunset realist, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

In the first painting I used a realist approach by painting the background, letting it dry, then over-painting the clouds and trees. In this version, I used an impressionist technique where I painted the trees first, capturing all the detail in the branches, trunks and leaves, then daubed in the surrounding sky and background vista. In the winter I will have to paint something like this most of the time since the paint wont dry fast enough. Even today, I did the background of the other two paintings, and did this one while they dried. 

West view sunset impressionist watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

This painting uses a surreal, colour-splash technique to create vibrant colour and energy. Its never clear how it will work out, in the midst of painting, I really thought it was a disaster and a waste of paper, but then I recalled the Cloud over Trenholme park painting, one of my favorites of all time. In today's painting, surprising colour blooms formed in the clouds and trees which added a mysterious texture to the scene. So I used three different treatments today of the same scene, realism, impressionism and surrealism. If I can make it back to this location in the winter I think it would be a good one. 

West view autumn sunset, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025 

Gravel field botanicals

Painting around the gravel field, I found an old disused asphalt road that stretched for several kilometers to the east. The road was surrounded by fields of dry grass and aspen tree saplings, with thousands upon thousands of small white daisies and other occasional purple or yellow flowers. I stopped to make a painting of one small yellow flower and a star-shaped green plant, with a small bee on the flower. The two plants were growing out of a pothole in the asphalt, which I depicted in black and white. 

Yellow flower green plant bee, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, October 2025

There were thousands upon thousands of these, so I made a close-up of just one plant at the same location. This time, I filled in the gravel and asphalt with a grey wash toned blue to yellowish, then daubed in the yellow centers (PY154 + PY43), followed by some foliage and shadow detailing. I dont often paint botanical close-ups, but today the scenes at the gravel field were all pretty much similar, it was just interesting to see nature coming back on its own. I did another one of cosmos flowers in the gravel field.  

Daisies asphalt, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, October 2025 

Old Turcot trainyard gravel fields

Down where the old Turcot trainyards used to be, there is a great expanse of gravel stretching from the Rue st Jacques bridge all the way east to the Turcot interchange, a distance of about 3 km. I painted a few scenes there back in June when there were thousands of yellow flowers. Today I headed back down there and made this panorama scene of the gravel field with its natural regrowth, and the highway and train in the background, with NDG up on the escarpment. The city has a massive plan, with Federal funding, to renaturalize the whole esccarpment area including these gravel fields. I found a link to the full plan in a gazette article, it was a 75 page pdf document filled with maps, pictures and plans. 

Gravel field panorama, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Ever wonder where Concrete dividers go when they die? I never did, but got the answer today! In the gravel fields there is an area filled with rows of neatly stacked concrete dividers, with a tall pile of the broken ones lying at the end. A pylon had also passed away. Getting the concrete to look heavy and textural took many different techniques and layers. It does truly look like a pile of concrete dividers with a pylon. 

Concrete divider pile, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025 

Here is another scene from the same location, but looking towards the neat stack of concrete dividers. The sun was coming down from left to right here, which cast a neat blueish shadow on the sun-bleached rocks. The plan for this area is to turn it into a forest with some wetlands, and a meandering walking path. It sounds fine, but I don't mind it the way it is, silent and no people around. Given enough time, a forest will grow up, I saw thousands of aspen trees probably from the canal trees nearby. 

Concrete divider stacks, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025  

Vacant lot renaturalization project?

Along st Jacques street, which runs parallel with the NDG escarpment, there are many autoshops, light industrial, and parking lots, not to mention the Enterprise car rental. Nearby, a large vacant lot has been growing wild for a few years now. I did a sunset scene there, and a few scenes just after the snow started to thaw. In the last painting on the snow thaw blog I did a scene of the adjacent lot which was full to the brim with trucks and dumpsters. Today, the main lot was really overgrown with a small forest almost, while the adjacent lot was completely cleared out of all trucks and dumpsters and trash. The city recently got 25 million to renaturalize the escarpment forest and I suspect this is part of the plan. In the painting, I showed the bright sun hiding behind a tree, with the golden-green field that is coming up through the gravel and asphalt. Of course, it could just be another condo project, time will tell!

Sun on vacant lot field, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

In the background of this unusual scene you can see a very weird condo they built to kind of look like a castle, with an even weirder truck in the middle-ground. The truck was some kind of heavy utility truck with a lot of hydraulics, it may have been for cutting down tall tree branches, or lifting components on construction yards. On the right is the overgrown vacant lot, which has filled in to become a field with a small forest in the middle. I also stopped by Terry Fox park and pulled more creeper vines off the trees, they are doing a lot better now, I cut a lot of the creeper vines over the last few years. 

Weird truck condo overgrown lot, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025 

Autumn views from Glen hill

Standing up on Glen hill behind the mega hospital provides excellent views of Montreal and the southern neighborhoods. In the foreground, there were a variety of trees with different autumn colours ranging from green to red to orange to yellow. The cars were moving along the highway like red blood cells travelling through a blood vessle. To create contrast I did the cars with a black, white red and green colour scheme which popped against the earthy and warm surrounding elements. 

Highway panorama autumn, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

From the same location looking east there is a good view of the curving highway and downtown core. Last time I was here the hill was overgrown with wildflowers and blue butterflies, today it was mowed, and only a few butterflies were left over. The weather has been furtunate although still a little chilly lately. Yellow and olive are predominant, there is not much orange or red this autumn. 

Downtown highway Glen hill, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025 

Jacques Cartier bridge night scenes

It gets dark so early now its night by 7pm. The other day I read about twilight and found out that there are three phases of twilight including astronomical twilight, nautical twilight and civil twilight that differ by the number of degrees below the horizon the sun is at. Technically it is night in this painting since the sun was well under the horizon and there were no discernable traces of the sunset remaining. To do the painting I set up near Notre Dame avenue and captured the Jacques Cartier bridge illuminated with funky fiber optic orange pink and yellow lights. It was noisy and still a lot of traffic was on the road as you can see. 

Jacques Cartier bridge lit up, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, October 2025

Looping around and then riding up the Jacques Cartier bridge on the bike path, I found the small viewing platform and made a panorama painting of the city at night. In the foreground is the st Lawrence river, then the train yard, then the down town core. Off to the left is old Montreal and the ferris wheel illuminated in pink light. 

City night panorama, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Still standing on the viewing platform, I did this painting looking back towards the brige, omitting all the fences. The carzy lights and geometric patterns with the cars roaring by made for a hectic scene. At the bottom left you see a sliver of the river, and a bit of the traffic going by on Notre Dame av. Finished in 1930 it was originally called the Montreal Harbour Bridge, its clearance over water is about 50 meters, and its highest point is about 100 meters. It is around 3km long, although I was only a short distance along the bridge where the first viewing platform is located. 

Disco bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Aspiration trees, colourful inventory

After work I picked up a few things at Snowdon bakery on Harley street then made a couple of paintings down the street at the field. The field is an undeveloped plot of land that Reno depot (now Rona+) donated to the community and now its a community garden, flower area, and they recently planted several rows of trees. In the background, you see the tree line that grew up along the fence next to the train tracks, while the newly planted trees are seen in the foreground. The new trees are aspiring to be bigger!  

Aspiration trees, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Next to the field is the loading dock and storage area for Rona+. The fence has vines growing on it, which were painted last after the colourful inventory was completed in the background. Of course, I fit in a small neon orange pylon on the bottom left. Pylons are practically my signature by now, although I added PJD25 for good measure. The pylon is done with a mixture I call "Montreal orange" after all the pylons they have here, its mostly benzi orange (PO62) with a dab of pyrol orange (PO73). 

Rona+ inventory, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Dusk on the Lachine canal

After the sun had set, the sky turned a cotton-candy pink with big fluffy violet clouds streaked in red. The artificial lights were prominent against a darkening sky and surroundings. Pink, violet and orange light reflected off of the rippling water. To paint something like this in watercolour it is important to keep the light highlights free of paint... the white areas are simply paper. Creating the illusion is the greyish background, even thought is colourful its a middle value. I also composed one of the clouds around the lamp to give even better contrast. For the lights along the other side of the canal, I surrounded them in lime green, then a near-black green to give a glow. Finally, the dark condos (PBk6 + PR101), and dark lamp post and railings complete the effect. 

Dusk on canal with lamp, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Just after the sun set, before I did the other painting, I did one of the train going over the bridge. In the background is a sprawling industrial complex turned into condos. Some of that structure used to be the Coleco factory that made toys until the 1970's when production went over seas. I swung by the glass factory after dark but the scene was not impressive, and I saw another good painting along the canal, but decided to save a few things for another day. 

Train over canal sundown, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Autumn tree colours make an appearance

Autumn leaf colours have been hard to find this year so far. Like here, you can just make out some bright yellow looking under the bridge. In the foreground, there is an old industrial building painted magenta and brick-red with graffiti, and a curving bridge off to the upper right.  

Trees through bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

Getting a better view of a red tree with a squirrel nest at the very top, I made this painting and included a yellow tree and an olive-coloured tree. The red is fairly high chroma but slightly neutralized, and more orange toward the bottom, greyish at the top due to the sky effect. The red is pyrol (PR254) with burnt sienna (PR101) in the middle of the tree, with orange (PO62) mixed in at the bottom and dilute blue (PB60) dabbed in at the top. Subtle variations like this are barley perceptible but still give a sense of atmosphere. 

Red tree squirrel nest, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

The back side of a long factory-turned-residential structure is covered in creeper vines that turned a bright, dark red with some yellow and green trees in front. To make the creeper-vine red I mixed perylene maroon (PR179) with a touch of pyrol red (PR254). The tracks were a simple combination of burnt sienna, carbon black (PBk6) with a greyish background (PB60 + PR101). 

Yellow green red leaves near train tracks, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

I took another crack at the El Pro factory, also turned condo a long time ago, and got some decent results. There were actually about 20 windows going across in the view, but I only painted about 7 across. If the paint was drying better I could have squeezed in more detail. On the way back, this structure is more impressive with lighting at night, especially in the back where I painted the other day. 

El Pro front side view, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

City scenes lights and flags

As I slogged up Peel towards the downtown core, I caught a good view of the sun peeking out from behind one giant glass tower and reflecting on the adjacent one. The view is looking up, in the direction of st Antoine west, the tower on the left is probably The Canadiens tower 3. Today, I brought along some old paintings done on 7.5 x 11" pieces of cold press paper, there was nothing on their backs until now! So there is still writing in pencil at the bottom here, it could be easily erased if needed. 

 Sun reflection glass towers, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, October 2025

Usually its geese honking as they fly south, but today it was hundreds of cars honking their horns on Rene-Leveque boulevard, while waving Palestinian flags. Cop cars were interspersed in the traffic, they had red, white, and blue lights blinking (although no sirens). The whole spectacle looked like some kind of bizarre parade, but it obviously had something to do with the situation in the Middle East. One can only hope a sort of peace can be enacted to end the violence. Last night, I read parts of a Monet art book and he painted The Rue Montorgueil in Paris which depicted French flags on a narrow city street, that event was meant to celebrate 'peace and work' in France in 1878. 

Lights flags honking, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, October 2025

Train yard flowers highlight

Making my way over to the train yard viewing area, which is a new bike path and benches installment at the south end of Point st Charles, I saw thousands of colourful wild flowers growing near the fence. In the background were the parked VIA and commuter trains that I painted before a few times. Although the weather today was a balmy 29℃, it was incredibly windy on this location once again. Obviously, there is a wind-tunnel effect here due to the train tracks that run east/west. Painting this one was a physical challenge as much as an art challenge, I had to keep everything tight with the strong wind while manipulating teeny-tiny brushes with accuracy. I'm glad I hung in there and the painting didn't blow away, its an instant classic! 

Flowers and trains, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2025

At the end of the trail, there is a very high, over 10 meter, berm of earth covered in wild flowers and a narrow goat-trail (no goats though). I marched my bike up to the top where there was a wide 2 x 3 meter flat dirt area where I could stand and paint with a good view of the train yard. The sun was reflecting off the train tops, creating a highlight at the center of mass. I started with concentric rings of light and colour, then over-painted the whole train scene. The wind up here was even stronger but I held on to everything and got the painting done, although I forgot to initial it as I made a hasty retreat down the hill. 

Train yard highlight, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, October 2025

Glass recycling factory

In the south west corner of Point st Charles there is Marguerite Bourgeoys Park, and an adjacent factory that appears to be recycling glass for manufacturing purposes. I saw little bits of broken glass sparkling on the road and though it to be the remains of broken car windows, but in fact there was a large pile of glass behind fencing. Parked on the road were a couple of large taco trucks, not in service though! One of those trees was turning yellow, orange and olive, which added a bit of autumn flavour. These trees are one of the few to change colours, they have pinnate leaves (kind of looks like fern). 

Glass recycling taco truck, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, October 2025

In the rear of the factory was a large fenced-in area with mountains of glass. As I painted, the glass kept shifting and sliding down making a clinking and clattering sound. The glass was painted with a pointilism-like technique, and with some dry brush dabbing to get the right textures. My wrist was sore at the end of this one! Tempting me were the floodlight high above the glass pile on the back wall... it suggested that these piles of glass would be illuminated by floodlights at night. The moon would also rise in this direction. 

Sparkling glass mountains, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press, October 2025

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