Night paintings, pops of colours all around

Heading out into the evening and feeling a little down, I sought out pops of colours all around. Here, a lamp was illuminating the grass at dusk, just after sunset. In the back groud is the Atwater market tower, some city buildings, and the Lachine Canal in the middle. It was very moist and cool which made for lively watercolours tonight. 

Canal dusk lamp Atwater tower, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

This prominent graffiti on an old warehouse by the Peel Basin can be credited to P2EE, WAR, and FOST. I changed it to PJD26 though for the painting.. In the background is a new condo with a bright green light running across the roof, and other pops of lights from windows and lamps. I vary the light colours from orange to pale green, and bright green for the feature light on the top. The feature light was done with green (PG36), then a mix of green and yellow (PG36 + PY184), then a strip of paper showing through to give a glow-effect. Its tricky to do this, let alone when standing by my bike in the dark downtown. 

PJD graff downtown green light, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

I was standing under the train bridge where the canal path ends, and heads off to the Old Port. There is a bright lamp with LED white light making it possible to paint this scene, you see my shadow standing by my bike in the foreground. In the background I changed the sign to say Farine Five Roses PJD. That's one thing the graffiti people can't do... put their initials in fluorescent red light. 

Farine Five Roses PJD under bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

On the way back I caught this view of a bunch of corporate office towers illuminated in red white and blue, which took me a second to understand.... its meant to support the Montreal Canadiens, bleu blanc et rouge! I used an abstract approach to get the idea down, and omitted the interesting trees from the foreground for the sake of time. It would have taken 20 minutes or so for this to dry enough, and I really just wanted to go home at this point. It was a nice cool evening though. I did one more painting that I will post separately, its kind of outrageous. 

Corporate passion, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026