Côte-des-Neiges metro and other unusual buildings

I finally found the occasion, and the mood, to paint a frontal view of Côte-des-Neiges metro. At the conclusion of the 68 stations of the Montreal metro series I painted the view on the other side of the street. This view is always back-lit and the architecture is interesting to say the least, sort of a lego-with-marble idea going on. I varied the colours in the facade to avoid too much grey and black. A tree was growing behind the structure, creating a halo of branches at the top. 

Côte-des-Neiges metro frontal view, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

 

Squirrels will build nests out of leaves and mud high up in the trees. These nest are not very reliable since they can blow away in the winter, hollow tree trucks are much more reliable. This nest was at incredible heights, it seemed to soar above the condos. I painted a scene of a squirrel nest in Griffintown the other weekend. There is another view of a squirrel nest along Walkley street that I may try when it snows.

Home above homes, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

 

This hospital is an unreal mountain of bricks sprawling over several football fields worth of area. To compose the scene I cropped in on a couple of smoke stacks and a tree that still and some leaves left on it. To make the brick colours I varied yellow ochre (PY43), red ochre (PR101, PBr7) with dabs of orange (PO62) and red-orange (PO36). The red-orange paint is made by Da Vinci company and sold from Studio 6 in Toronto, I got it by online order. In fact, they dont even open their store to customers, its online order only. Apparently they were like this even before the pandemic. Art supplies are relatively straightforward to purchase on line if you know what you want. The difficulty is figuring out what to get, there are dozens of companies and thousands of products to sift through.

St. Mary's Hospital smoke stack, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Caramel colours around Mount Royal

Around Mount Royal the city demolished an old concrete overpass and completely renovated the entire area with paths and new roads with plenty of green space preserved. Most of the trees that were on the overpass embankments were also saved including the one in the painting. Its shadow cast down and to the left over top of the colourful leaves. I painted this scene early in 2021 on a snowy day when the overpass was still intact.

Tree shadow Autumn, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

 

Too exhausted to ride up the hill, I contented myself with painting the scene looking up. The cars were scaled to give a sense of distance and the road was composed on a steep diagonal. With Autumn well advanced, most of the colours were warm caramels and olive greens. I mixed them with yellow ochre, oranges, greens, and dabs of red-orange. Its easy to overdo it and get colours that are too bright, or colours that are grey and drab.

Up the hill, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

 

In the background is the cemetery, as always I have to make the joke that people are dying to get into it. At least I wont offend anyone. This prominent tree has an incomprehensible tangle of branches emanating in every direction, its a wonder it survives the winter covered in snow. When and if it ever does snow, perhaps I will try to do a painting of it again.

Tree of Life, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Moon over campus lights

Here is a painting of our forward-thinking, teach for tomorrow, green campus. Virtually all the lights were on because everyone works so hard. Apparently there is technology that will automatically turn lights off when not needed, but maybe that is just a little too futuristic for us. There is also technology that allows people with wheel chairs to get around inside of buildings, but ramp technology has also eluded us at Loyola campus, with all the complicated angles and such. Side note, they are spending millions to renovate the old stone work on the administration building, so I guess stone age technology is about right. Sarcasm aside, I caught this view of the crescent moon above the science pavilion, with the big tree in front, no leaves. With all the lights on, it made for some interesting patterns and effects. The painting took longer than I thought with all the details and layering. Amazingly, I could do this painting with no gloves on, and its November 7th. In the old days it would have already been sub-zero Celsius by now, perhaps even snowing. 

Moon over campus lights, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Ivory tower at night

 

Once again those administrators were in their offices with the lights on, working late at night. I was just a lowly professorial-peon working after hours to get tomorrows slide show ready, while they are no doubt up there making sure the next memo is typo free. Or perhaps someone just left the lights on? Actually, I had an early meeting up in one of those rooms so maybe we were the ones who left the lights on. At any rate, I managed to do this painting with my guantlet mitts, it was actually quite warm but I wanted to practice setting up my gear and completing a painting, kind of like painting with oven mitts. The painting turned out to be quite colourful considering it was a night scene. The sky is a mix of dark blue (PB60) and red-orange (PO73)... for the clouds the mix leans to the orange, for the dark sky the mix leans to the blue. Carbon black was used to create the other dark colours including the bricks, roof, sidewalk, road and trees with their remaining leaves.

Ivory tower at night, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

City and District Savings Bank building

 

Now an accounting office, this historic building was once the City and District Savings Bank. Started by the catholic church, it eventually became Laurentian bank and has been successful to this day. The building is right at the end of three streets in Point st Charles (Wellington, Grand Trunk and Centre) across from a small triangular park called square Tansey. Its not the kind of place people go unless they are getting the bus, walking to and from work, or riding their bike like me. Using a 2:1 horizontal format I could show the big central structure in silhouette, flanked by two streets with the foreground park elements. I used to paint silhouette all the time then stopped for some reason. To make the silhouette I used a blend of red ochre (PR101) and indo blue (PB60), then washed it out a bit towards the bottom to create a subtle glow. The subtle glow was what I was missing in the older paintings, I'm talking late 90's...you end up with a muddy void if the silhouette is too dark and thick. Its a fantastic composition, maybe there is some way to haul out a 100 x 50 like Van Gogh did, but 12 x 16 is about the biggest size I can easily fit in the bike pack.

City and District Savings Bank, watercolour 4.5 x 9" cold press, November 2024

Warehouses and storage in Point st Charles

 

Point st Charles still has warehouses and storage areas with some light industrial, especially in the east part of town near the highways and rail yards. In the background you see the tall silos that were converted into climbing walls for energetic hipsters and their kids. The prominent A-frame warehouse on the left dominated the scene and cast a long shadow over the cars which looked tiny in comparison. I don't know what the warehouse is for, but when I looked at google maps it showed a derelict and graffiti covered building with broken windows, whereas today in real life it was totally clean and appeared to be fully operational. A rare instance where new investment came in to refurbish and restore a warehouse back to its original purpose.

Warehouses and silos, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, November 2024

 

Standing in the shadow on a narrow and steep grass embankment next to the road, I made this painting of the sun dipping below the A-frame roof of the warehouse. The paper size is new for me, I used a 2:1 format which is normally used for sea-scapes. In his latter phase, Van Gogh used the 2:1 format, although he was doing 50 x 100 inches. Most of his 2:1 paintings were of fields on the horizontal, and he did at least one portrait on the vertical. So far I like the format, in this case it helped emphasize the line of the A frame roof on perspective, giving a graphic-design feel to the scene.

Warehouse Silhouette, watercolour 4.5 x 9" cold press, November 2024

 

Trying the 2:1 format on the horizontal I made this painting of the shipping containers that go as far as the eye can see from left to right. In the background is the elevated train road. Having tried scenes like this several times before, it has never gone quite right. Its one of those locations where there must be a great painting waiting to happen once it is found. In fact, I could have made a dozen more painting in this area but it was time to pack it in, we lost one hour of light today so the daylight painting is even shorter.

Shipping containers, watercolour 4.5 x 9" cold press, November 2024

Convenience stores in Point st Charles

If there is one thing that defines Québec and especially Montréal, it would be the dépanneur otherwise known as a convenience store or corner store.Quite literally, many of these small shops are located on the corner of a building, often with apartments beside and on top. Some of them have other specialties like craft beer, flowers, deli sandwiches for example. For the most part they make their living from alcohol, cigarettes, lotto tickets, junk food and overpriced milk. Although, if you look around the prices can be lower in a shop like this as compared to the grocery stores. This old buildings looks like early 19th century construction, it has that typical green trim and reddish bricks.

Dépanneur Charlevoix, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

The main drag in Point st Charles is the aptly named Centre street. There are like 5 convenience stores on this street alone, and over a dozen of them in this small neighborhood. For variety, I set up on an angle, and painted the bottom part of the sign and portions of the door and window. They city has recently resurfaced most of the roads and completed a wonderful array of bike paths. I could easily get around town safely and make these paintings.

Dépanneur Centre, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024

Technically not a dépanneur this one is branded as a mart (marché) since it has produce and perishables like spices and sauces on its shelves, along with the usual lotto tickets and other vices. To avoid a frontal scene which would have put me in the shadowed side of the street, I found this angle standing on the sidewalk. It made for a tricky perspective, which I established by holding my brush up to guage the angles. You see the small second story balconies that are typical for such buildings. I tried to get the glare effect on the facade... that occurs when the sun is on an angle, it makes the colours appear to be washed out. John Little the late Montreal painter did the glare effect in one of his paintings so I tried it here. If you saw what this scene looked like in real life, I have to say the painting does it justice and then some.

Marché KC, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2024