Yellow flowers, Spring is here!?

I had been lamenting the fact that everything was still grey and brown... today I finally saw some yellow wild flowers growing down in the industrial-residential area near the Lachine canal. The rest of the grassy expanse, which is a community nature reserve, was a mottled mix of toasty yellow, olive, brown, dark yellow and green. I used a variety of colours and brush techniques to create the effect of a Springtime field of grass. 

First flowers, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026  

On the left you see part of the SCAN tribute wall, along Cabot street south of the Canal. I hadn't noticed before but the wall, seen in tuquoise here, is a giant rendition of SCAN, the letters reaching about 4 stories high. Also, the people who did the wall, shortly after SCAN died, are graffiti artists from Montreal and around the world. If you are into graffiti or urban art, this place is worth a visit. Its near the corner of Avenue Gilmore, seen in between the green shed and the SCAN warehouse. The writer on the side wall was FOST, an old timer, but I changed it to my initials. 

Scan wall, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026

Here is a painting of the Canal lock overflow falls, it has a pedestrian and bike bridge going across. In the background there were a bunch of highway signs from autoroute 15. There was a massive BTH graffiti on the stone walls, its the name of a crew, but I changed the first letter to P, and put in a JD. In fact, I almost always change the graffiti to be my initials because its fun to do so. Copying a graffiti artist's style is called 'biting'. 

Lock falls Spring, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026 

I sized-up this old metal post several times for a painting, but never went ahead with it. Today I figured it was time, you never know how long these things last. The post was originally painted with iron oxide colour, and had a number stamped on with yellow painted font. Over the years, it rusted out, paint chipped, and someone spray painted their initials over top with silver paint. It was a very technical painting to do, since you can not paint light on dark, I had to establish the yellow and silver-effect, then paint around the lettering. In the background is a sweaty old warehouse covered in PJD 26! Some kids were walking around the roof of this thing... seemed dangerous but I can understand the appeal of exploring old buildings. 

Zen factory biting, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, April 2026