Scenes along the bike paths in Brossard

To get down to the river there is a long, well maintained bike path that runs under the high-tension power lines in Brossard. Midway, there was an enormous field of brown-eyed susans which I painted from the side view. While it looks simple enough, this painting was a real skill tester. the flowers are painted first, then surrounded by a variety of greens ranging from olive green to dark yellow. Leaving space for purple and yellow flowers, then applying additional textures and filling in the background and foreground completed the scene. The effort reminded me of when I painted the World Inspired Landscapes UK painting of rain drops on the window. The other odd thing, is that you can really see the smog in this paining, with tea-coloured clouds and everything tinted amber. 

Brown-eyed susans side view, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4576a)

Here is a different angle, in the background is the post of one of the high-tension power line supports, and in the middle is the long field of flowers. One nice thing about this bike path was that there was a waterfountain with cold water, so I could refill my water containers. I had a 500mL bottle, a 1L bottle, and 300mL bottle. With all the painting and drinking the water was going fast. It really helped later in the trip when dehydration was starting to set in. I also brought some lunch and some instant coffee on the trip which helped give me a second wind.  

Brown-eyed Susans front view, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025  (No. 4564b)

A lot of the bike path near the st Jacques river was completely surrounded by very tall grass which obscured the view of the river. Here and there a dead tree could be seen above the grass, and the tops of the trees on the opposite side of the river could also be seen. The st Jacques river was a pretty good location, I was not expecting too much based on google map views, and it exceeded expectations. Mostly, it was very quiet and cool, with the earthy smells of nature all around. 

Tall grass dead tree, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4572b)

From park Radisson the bike path also goes northwest, through many acres of dry grassland and small trees. Eventually there was a T junction with what looked like a river, but it actually Lac de La Citière, just an artificial looking pond surrounded by luxury cottages and mansions. Several water spouts could be seen. Paining cascading water is tough, I tried a wet-in-wet approach with some brushwork on top. 

Water spout Lac de La Citière, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4573b)

Industrial Brossard, variety of shapes and colours

After making some paintings of the river, you know I could not resist painting some of the industrial parts of Brossard. Ending at the river is rue Illinois, which has a variety of light industrial and storage companies. These cranes looked like big blue dinosaurs with yellow eyes! They are called personnel baskets, likely for repairing power lines. In the background you can see how the clouds were tea-coloured. I added a few vans and trees in the foreground for ambiance. 

Personnel cranes, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4569)

 

A long undulating bunker-style building had a green drum next to it. Such an interesting shape, I painted it with a three-toned wash (clear, yellowish, violet), then over-painted the bevels and rust. You can see how bright the grass was, I created the effect with bismuth vanadate yellow (PY184) and touches of green (PG36). Some lads who work there walked past a few times, they must have been wondering what this guy was painting the factory for.  

Bunker with green drum, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4570)

 

 When I see something I have never painted before, I always try to stop and paint it. Years ago I did a painting of the st Enoch station in Glasgow Scotland, it had an even stranger shape, seemingly impossible, but I pulled that painting off. With enough experience, you can start to believe any painting is possible. Those splashes in the sky were not there when I finished the painting, it must have happened in the bike bag. 

Bunker door, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4571)

 

Taking advantage of the nice weather I just kept on painting in the area. This car had a pale lemon colour, but the prominent tree in the background was the main subject matter. To make the two elements pop (the car and the tree) I made the rest of the painting pretty grey and bland, with cool blues and violets. In the old days I might have used Aureolin yellow (PY40) to get that shade of yellow on the car, but it is a highly unstable and toxic pigment I removed about 15 years ago. This time, I used benzi yellow (PY154) with a touch of water. To paint the tree I used some techniques I learned from Van Gogh's paintings such as the Starry night and others where he painted cyprus trees. He did the tree in near-blacks, but here I tried to strike an optimistic note by infusing the tree with yellow. 

Yellow car and tall tree, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4572a)

Lastly for this area, I did one more of cars in a parking lot, one car had an interesting lime (chartreuse) the other was teal (Turquoise, dark cyan). Since neither colour is directly on my palette, I had to mix a variety of paints to get the hue and value correct. The lime car was bismuth vanadate yellow (PY184) and green (PG36), while the teal car was viridian hue (PG7) with phthalo blue sapphire (PB15) and a touch of indo blue (PB60). Surrounding the cars with a variety of olive tones and grey helped make the car colours pop.  

Teal and lime cars, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4573a)

Park Radisson, st Jacques River in Brossard

On the so-called south shore, which means on the south shore of the st Lawrence river, there is a community called Brossard, it is just east of the Kahnawake Mohawk territory. To get there by bike, I took a long ride from NDG through Verdun, Nun's island, and onto the Champlain bridge bike path which is on the east side of the bridge completely separate from the traffic. The bridge span is about 3 or 4 km, with a significant up and down, but the traffic and smog were the unpleasant aspect of the ride. Not to mention my chain fell off but I got it back on, then it skipped intermittently the whole time. Complaining aside, it was an otherwise great day for the bike ride with a cool breeze and mostly sunny day. This scene shows the place where people rent kayaks and other water craft like paddle boards to enjoy the st Jacques river. Of course, I found a way to tastefully add a garbage bin in the foreground! 

Park Radisson rentals, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4564a)

  

This was the first painting I did early in the morning upon arrival to park Radisson, it helped me get dialed in to the colours. In preparation for the trip today, I dropped by the art store on Friday and got some new Arches cold press watercolour paper. Some of today's paintings were on the new paper. You can see the colours in the river, most of it was a tea colour, like caramel, with tints of blue-violet from the sky and various shades of green and dark yellow from the algae near the shore. 

st Jacques river colours, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4565)

 

Further downstream, there was a short tributary with a floating wharf for launching boats. I managed to set up my bike here and make a painting, although a lady and her friend insisted on trying to take photos of the same scene which caused the wharf to rock more than I would have liked. Luckily nobody went into the drink. This area kind of reminded me of Amsterdam where there were canals over over town. 

 st Jacques river view from wharf, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4566)

 

Most of the view of the river was obscured by tall grass and reeds. In this opening, you can see the other side of the river lined with reeds, and all the interesting colours of the river. I used a lot of bismuth vanadate yellow (PY184) today to get the sensational yellows and greens. The sky was strangely tinted amber, likely from the lingering forest-fire smoke from western parts of Canada.

 st Jacques river tall reeds, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4567)

  

The idea to paint this river began with my search for rivers on the island of Montreal. While there are still a few, the only one near where we live is next to the Lachine canal, covered in a meter of concrete! Brossard appears to have gone to lengths to preserve this river and the surrounding wetlands. Going past the river and there were acres of grass and trees with a few bike paths. I suppose in the old days, people thought there was so much wilderness it could never disappear, but now conservation is a bigger part of the conversation. The locals seemed to love this river, there were families going for a paddle, kids looking for frogs, and at least one artist making watercolours next to his bike!

st Jacques river trees, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4568)

Old brick red building

 

This is the lower portion of an old warehouse-style construction supply building that might be derelict now, although it shows up on google maps as a bedding store. Long shadows were being cast across rue st Patrick from right to left. For the brick colours I used burnt sienna (PR101) with pyrol red (PR254/PY57) and some pyrol orange in places (PO73). After all the strong green from the last painting I posted, it was nice to paint one with all the reds. I am planning a bigger bike ride this coming Saturday across the bike path on Champlain bridge in order to paint the st Jacques river. In preparation I will likely take a few days off from painting and cycling to charge the batteries now that my bike is all fixed up. 

Old brick red building, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4563)

l'Ancienne-cour-de-triage Park

The other day I tried to paint during a massive rain storm, the second scene was this view of a turquoise bench in an adjacent park. After work I picked up my bike from the shop and rode off, with a new chain, rear cassette and pedals, and rode over to the same spot where I waited out the storm previously. The tea-coloured sky seemed to tint everything with a yellowish glow. After some research, this is called l'Ancienne-cour-de-triage Park. It was once a train yard, heavily contaminated, now its the Fresh water public works and this leisure park. Go figure. Before it was a train yard, there was a river called st Pierre river here. It would have run just about where you see the sidewalk in this painting. When it was pouring rain, I remarked that this sidewalk looked like a river with the amount of water coming down... how right I was! Of course, the actual river was buried a long time ago. 

Turquoise bench haze, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4560)

 

According to an old faded  heritage sign here, this low stone wall and path would have been where the st Pierre river once flowed. I was trying to find local rivers on the island of Montreal and there seems to be almost none, now we know why. In the background, you see the Lachine canal. 

Old river line, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4561)

Maybe it was the yellow haze but the grass seemed unusually chartreuse. I used copious amounts of bizmuth vanadate yellow (PY184) and touches of phthalo green yellow shade (PG36). There were a lot of people around, lounging, biking, and jogging, although I left them out of the painting this time. 

Bright chartreuse grass, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025  (No. 4562)

Cazelais park summery scenes

Where Cazelais street meets st Rémi street near the autoroute there is a very small sitting area surrounded by some gardens and landscaping. A circular brick patio is at the center, I saw it on google maps from the year 2022 and there was no paint on the patio bricks... some intrepid artist coloured them in very tastefully. And it wasn't me using artistic license this time, the bricks really were those colours. The very center-most square stone was black, so it was surely done by an artist with a plan and not an amateur vandal. The main subject matter here were the tiger lillies that come out briefly in the summer. I will just call this area Cazelais park for lack of a better term. 

Tiger Lillies Cazelais park, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4557)

 

It was such a nice location, in the shade, cool breeze, that I made a another painting. Speaking of amateur vandals, there was a seriously crunched up metal bin overflowing with trash. The brick patio was simplified into a grid this time so as to not distract too much from the focal point (the metal bin). Metallic colours are best made with quin purple (PV55) and viridian hue green (PG7), then adjusted with yellow ochre (PY43) or better yet, raw sienna (PBr7). Leaving areas blank on the metal surface, and adding some thin blue/violet mixes (PB15, PR122) completes the effect. Someone had scribbled names on the bin in a black sharpie, so I added my initials instead. I once called this kind of painting 'still life on a sidewalk', that description certainly fits the theme here. 

Crunched metal bin, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4558)

 

This was the first one I did, kind of a warm-up painting to get dialed into the conditions which were hot and muggy, with an orange-yellow (amber) haze in the sky. I had just dropped off my bike at the shop for some major repairs so I was on foot the whole time, using my bike bag with a shoulder strap to paint. Standing under the overpass in the shade, on a slight incline, this view shows a triangular patch of land filled with wild flowers, next to a construction fence.

Triangle patch of flowers, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025 (No. 4559)

Summer Smoke Palette 2025

 

Its been an odd summer with dry and rain spells, and a yellowish haze over everything due to the wild fires in Central and Western Canada. Earlier in June I made a series of paintings featuring the hazy sky, and since then noticed a orange-yellow haze that is prominent on the horizon, but also tints everything with a subtle amber hue. I recall the pandemic when there were  no cars in Montreal, after a week or two the sky became a crystal clear 'true blue'. Now, I can see the subtle variations in atmospheric colour changes from a painters perspective. About a month ago I instinctively added a blob of raw sienna (PBr7), cadmium red hue (PR254/PY53) and bismuth yellow (PY184) to my palette, as seen above in the painted sketch. The other day, it occurred to me that those three colours provide the amber tint caused by smokey skies. Its an unfortunate adjustment for the sake of realism. The rest of the palette is pretty much the same as before, pigment codes are scribbled on the sketch. My paints are made by various companies: Holbein (Japan), Daniel Smith (US), Schminke (Germany), Da Vinci (US), Shin Han (South Korea), and Winsor and Newton (UK/US). I buy them from Avenue Des Arts, Kama Pigments, and DeSerres. 

Summer Smoke Palette 2025, sketch book paper