Lightness on Jolicoeur street, Dépanneur Freesia

After years of riding my bike around Montreal its not often that I get lost, but today to be honest I got turned around somewhere after going under the A15 along Angers street. In retrospect it was Cote st Paul, a small neighborhood wedged between the highway, the canal and the aqueduct. Eventually the canal became visible with the mega hospital on the horizon and I was found again. On the way, this corner Dépanneur stood out, it had greyish plaster walls, a colourful sign, and warm amber light coming from the front door. It was reminiscent of Darkness on Ontario Street, but in the inverse. This could have been Lightness on Jolicoeur street, and Jolicoeur roughly translates into happy heart. Most people were going in to get smokes, alcohol and chips, so not sure how happy the hearts were, but it definitely was a community hub here. For proximity, this is very close to Monk street. Luckily the rain held off and I could produce another 14 paintings today after doing the same number yesterday. With more time, I used a larger format of 6 x 7.5" and a few of 8 x 10".

Lightness on Jolicoeur street Dépanneur Freesia, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4041a)

Montreal Convention Center, with yellow underpass

Part of the plan of going downtown was to find some shelter in case it rained, such as the massive Convention center. Here is a view of where the underpass begins, it has bright amber yellow track lights, which gave an eerie glow. On the right is the concrete exterior. The idea here was to create an abstraction of reality, its just about exactly how it looked in real life but the painting is almost cubist.

Convention Center abstraction, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4036a)

 

Avenue Viger goes under the convention center, here is a view of the underpass illuminated with the eerie yellow orange glow. It was a colossally difficult painting to conceptualize with all the angles and bizarre lighting conditions. The idea was to keep it light and airy so as to convey the sense of space and depth. At least there was no rain down here.

Convention Center underpass, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4036a)

In this panorama view you see the convention center with its glorious green glass facade. Apartment buildings and a grey sky complete the scene. I've cut a 6 x 7.5" format that I will try out next time, it will be better for social media on that ratio and give a little more space for these ambitious city scenes.

Convention Center green, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4034b)

China town on a rainy day

 

Some locals were doing tai chi in this notable community square, surrounded by tourists and at least one painter. The main focus was the ornate shrine-like structure on the right and how it played against the background elements. Tall trees had red lanterns hanging on the branches.

China town community square, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4033a)

 

It said art gallery on the sign in both languages, but the whole thing looked shut down and derelict or something. Just some faded prints in the upper floor window signified a gallery. I liked the building across the street that was reflecting in the tinted glass, and how the red and yellow sign popped off against the dour surroundings.

China town art gallery, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4033b)

 

The narrow street had hundreds of people, with rows of tall trees adorned with red lanterns. The overhead street lights were also shaped like lanterns which was neat. The crowd underneath was just sketched in with some textural elements and brushstrokes to signify people.

Lanterns in trees, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. 4034a)

It was one painting too many, the rain finally came down. It was only spitting rain but enough to sort of ruin this painting. For three minutes of effort it turned out okay anyways, but I can definitely return to this spot on a better day.

Old Montreal rained on, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2024 (No. )

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)