Sun down moon up, sky colours

Riding down to ville st Pierre with the sun going down and I found myself at one of the many elevated highway ramps, this one in the west direction. The elevated ramps often catch the sunset, and concrete happens to look pretty neat when its illuminated in orange or red-orange. I did a fantastic one last year of the sun setting on Turcot interchange in st Henri area. In this scene, I emphasized the convergening shapes of the ramp and the access road, and contrasted coral orange, purples, chartreuse, and the emerald green pops of car windshields and traffic signs. Cutting through the pastels are bright-red tail lights on passing cars, done with the excellent pyrol red paint (PR254). 

Sundown off ramp, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Here is a scene of one of the many factores-turned-condos along st Ambrose street. I am standing on the Lachine canal bike path looking across. Composing the moon low in the scene was an artistic license thing, in fact, the moon was hanging high today. With near-complete darkness and no artificial lights with me tonight, it was tricky to get all the colours right. Deep purple clouds were rolling in on the horizon. 

Crescent moon condo living, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

In among the soaring new condo towers downtown, there is a new dépanneur on Peel called dépanneur Peel, pretty original name eh? Again, I composed the moon low so as to include it in the scene, near a bright LED street lamp. I painted the yellows and oranges first, then over-painted with darker colours made mostly of burnt yellow ochre (PR102) mixed with carbon black (PBk6) or dark blue (PB60). When painting at night you have to hang in there because its hard to see the effect until the colour blocks are filled in, and only the white and yellow light sources remain. One of my favorite night paintings of the year is Night Goose. It has a lot of views already. I did another good painting of the Sunset over Turcot from st Pierre, I will post it separately. 

Dépanneur Peel crescent moon,  watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026