Somewhere Montreal

During the pandemic year I did a painting called Nowhere Montreal, it was down some industrial road that was only accessible because there weren't any trucks on the road. This painting is called somewhere Montreal, like it could be anywhere downtown on a grey overcast day. As I painted this one, it started to look a little cheesy, then the trees were growing out of the street and the buildings were all wrong, and I thought, who cares?  It looks good! The dramatic little splash of light and ominous clouds play well off the dark violet and brown buildings. Its a drunken master style. Seeing it now, I regret not adding some more cheesy little pedestrians with umbrellas. Perhaps kitschy is a better term. At any rate, its a nice painting despite its flaws. And still no rain...

Somewhere Montreal, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4033)

Reeling them in before the rain, downtown Montreal

Shaughnessy Village used to be a separate part of Montreal until the city enveloped it, now its remembered by a block of Victorian-style houses and a famous cafe. In the painting, multiple story apartments loom in the background, with the delicate structures below. It was going to rain today so I had to paint fast not knowing when the deluge would arrive.

Shaughnessy Cafe, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4027b)

On the left edge of the painting you see the side of the cafe, with the view down Lambert Closse street on the right. That black box on the bottom right is the old Forum arena where the Habs would play, now its a cinema and shopping area. The condos in the background are relatively new. The sky was turning pretty nasty as I painted. By the way, this appears to be the 5000th painting I have ever done, give or take!

View down Lambert Closse street, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4030b)

Tackling this subject was a daunting task, its a scene I want to do with a larger format and more detail one day, so this was mostly an exploratory sketch of it, using watercolour. I suppose most of my small location paintings are sketches, although every now and then one becomes a complete painting on its own. Like Gull over Water North Rustico from PEI has well over a hundred views!

Shaughnessy Cafe and upper section, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4031a)

For some reason there was a smaller piece of paper that I cut, and this painting seemed to be perfect for it. The red brick structure is the Bay downtown, with a monolithic office tower or condo in the background.

The Bay side view, watercolour 6 x 5" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4032)

 

The loading dock had a neat, repetitive structure with perspective, and the background building had yellow ochre brick. I missed the hue on the yellow ochre, after applying the purple-grey under-painting it cut the chroma of the second layer more than I expected. Judging the half chroma yellow is a tough one, too bright and its like a lemon, too dim and it approached a cardboard colour. Somehow I reeled off a large number of paintings today in a short time, so there will be a few more blogs.

The Bay loading dock, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4031b)

Auto shops at night, but not the usual one

If you follow my blog you know that I paint the auto shop across the street from our condo, mostly because if its proximity, and the great sunset backdrops and other atmospheric effects. Today I painted a brand name auto shop called Midas, but replaced the name on the sign with my name. To create the illusion that the sign is illuminated yellow, I kept the yellow chroma max, and made the rest of the painting a neutral greyish. Highlights on the car roofs helped complete the effect. The street lights were also visible at this time of day. You have to paint a scene like this with your brain as much as your eyes and hands, because the lack of light and dim conditions make it hard to judge. So on location, I kind of imagine what the final painting needs to be and do it with a strategy. It takes experience to make this work, and since 2020 I painted a lot of night paintings and learned a lot. There is a page on night painting techniques. It has over 150 views which is neat, most of the technique pages have been viewed numerous times.

Midas touch PJD, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4029a)

 

This is Montreal obviously but it has middle east writing that looks to be Arabic, but the colour scheme and style suggests to me that it is Iranian, with the language being Farsi. They were still working hard well after work hours, both garage doors were open and illuminating the cars in the parking lot. Doing these paintings at dusk is harder than it seems, I try to pick one key highlight element and make sure that works as a focal point. For example, here the garage on the left has pure white elements and strong yellows that do not appear elsewhere in the painting, which creates a focal point. In the last painting its more obvious, I included a massive yellow oval sign that draws the eye in. Without the highlight element, the scene runs the risk of degenerating into a puddle of grey goo.

Persian autoshop night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4029b)

Catching the sunset after work

 

As the days get shorter so does it get harder to go out after work and paint in the daylight. At some point it will be dark at 5pm or earlier the closer we get to winter. In this scene the sunset has occurred and the clouds are reflecting the pale salmon-peach colour that can be made with dilute orange PO62 and red-orange PO73. Getting the exact shade right is tricky, and it has a slight yellow-orange tint at the top of the cloud but its subtle. The rest of the sky has pastel violet, blue and cyan.

Phone tower with pink sunset, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4025)

 

Standing on the pedestrian overpass, there are views of the train tracks and the downtown city skyline. The sky was a simple peach and blue, with dark blue and green buildings. The buildings dried a bit darker than I thought they would, usually indo blue dried a shade lighter but its difficult to predict all the time.

Tracks with downtown view, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4026a)

 

And here is the same location but looking towards the west, with the apartments on the top of the escarpment and a candy-coloured sky. The train went by but it was too late for me to try and work it into the painting.

Apartments and tracks sunset, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4019b)

 

At the moment of sunset the sky glowed orange. In the foreground is a vacant lot on st Jacques with an old billboard. I often think about buying this lot, removing the asphalt and restoring it into a forest but it would probably cost a fortune and everyone would think I'm nuts. Its one of my life dreams, to turn a parking lot back into a forest somewhere.

Orange sky vacant lot, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4027a)

Sun going down on the lachine canal

The colours around the Lachine canal picked up an interesting amber glow as the sun descended. Greys were warmer, yellows were slightly olive, and blues took on a neutral appearance. What makes the painting really work is the composition, with the lamp providing a strong anchor and depth. I actually just wanted to paint the sumac tree off to the right, and it really came together with the other elements including a busy overpass bridge. 

Canal overpass with lamp and sumac, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4022)

 

By now its a classic scene of the gantry train by the Lachine canal. You just can't go wrong painting this! There was a prominent tree right in the middle of the scene which I had planned to include, but the scene was nice enough as it was. You have to make quick decisions like that on the fly when painting on location.

 Gantry crane sun down, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4023a)

 

Its the first thing you see when taking the 'new' route over the highway and reach the canal which explains why I have painted this billboard and bridge so many times. Especially in the winter, the path is difficult to ride on and I stick to this particular spot. But today I felt like painting the canal so here it is! When painting concrete, its important to notice that the value is quite high, that is light, its like a pale neutral beige almost. The sky on the other hand is about a medium value.

Canal overpass with billboard, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4024a)

 

Part of the massive Turcot project was to improve the st Jacques access from the highway. The cars at the top of the painting would be coming from downtown Montreal, driving west, over top of the trains, and heading up to NDG via st Jacques. What appealed to me about this scene, besides the train tracks was the abundant foliage that they planted on the embankment, which included blue pine trees. As usual I replaced the graffiti with my initials PJD24 using the style that was there in real life just different letter. Its kind of fun copying the graffiti art, some of it is pretty good.

On ramp and train track, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4024a)

 

I wrote about making quick decisions on the fly and in this case it did not work out as well as I had hoped. The plan was to frame the sumac tree and canal scene with the top of the bridge and foreground shadows. When I saw how nice the canal, tree and gantry was looking, the bridge element on top just seemed unnecessary. I pulled off this type of composition successfully when painting Molson Brewery under Cartier bridge, but in the Molson painting I had the bridge much higher, and showed one of the bridge supports to tell the visual story more accurately. At any rate, I would surely like to go back to this general area to make more paintings.

Nice view under overpass, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4023b)

 

 

 

 

Night burger, sunset power station Verdun

 After painting around the canal I headed down to Verdun for some excellent Tandoori chicken on Wellington street, then made a quick painting of the burger joint across the street. The scene reminded me a bit of Hopper's Night Hawks painting, so I called it Night burger. Most of the painting is done with carbon black and burnt umber with indo blue, and yellow, red and blue accents.

Night burger, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4028a)

For some reason the Verdun power station is a regular backdrop for spectacular atmospheric effects like the moon and sunsets like you see here. To paint this scene the sunset is applied first, then the dark elements are painted over top when dry. Its quite dramatic with all the contrast and unusual details. 

Sunset power station, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4028a)

Detour after work, sunny day

The city recently completed a new entrance for the trains, its the tall glass structure with the sloping roof. The train was going by every 5 or 6 minutes due to it being rush hour and luckily I had the earplugs with me. Well its not luck I always bring them. To paint the glass tint, PG7 is the way to go, its a great phthalo green blue shade, a paint I have been using for over 30 years. In fact I have been painting for about 35 years now, 1989 onwards, but at first I had chromium viridian (PG18) a similar shade of green but more subtle. 

New train station, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4019a)

 

Painting the commuter train required several passes, I finally got the pattern more or less right. Completing the scene are a few figures painted over top, by the number of backpacks they must have been students. Today was the second  day of classes at the University. I made the metallic greys with dilute black (PBk6) and blue (PB15). Watercolour painters sometimes give advice to avoid black paint but I find it indispensable although it can be overused in a painting. Without black you have to mix bright colours like magenta and green which mess them up on the palette. There are also convenience greys, which are mixes you can buy in a tube, but may as well use carbon black its a great pigment.

Waiting for commuter train, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4020a)

 

The barrier came down and I had to wait, but why waste time? I set up and made a painting of the complex train barrier and cop car in the background, the cop was just getting out and watching every time the train went by, nice gig. Foregrounding an object like this is a trick Hiroshige used a lot in his 19th century prints. The most famous was the one he did of a horse's ass with dung on the ground. Those Japanese illustrators had a good sense of humor.

Train barrier and cop car, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4020b)

On the way back I made this painting of the auto shop across the street, back lit. It had been awhile since I painted a picture of the auto shop so here it is. In the painting, the old red walls were recreated, even though now its a pale cadaverous grey. The cars are done real simple, black outline, blue wash leaving white highlight at top, green/black window, random colour for car paint, and the cherry red tail lights.

Auto shop back lit, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4021)