A Montréal Washroom

Montreal built several public washrooms back in the 1930s. They closed some time ago. This one is in Cabot Square (Ste-Catherine x Atwater) and is currently used as a flower shop, though I painted it as it looked originally. At the left is the Cabot Square entrance to the Atwater Métro Station. Once again, I took some artistic license, this time with the background. In reality, there would be Alexis Nihon Plaza and the former Montréal Forum (now a multiplex cinema).

An Albany School

I took a lot of photos of Public School 1 in Albany's South End. I was so intrigued by its Moorish arch. I will probably do some more paintings using it as my model. PS 1 isn't red; I used artistic licence.

A Braille Birthday Card

My friends Luise and Peter, in Montréal, just turned 50 and treated ten friends to a super birthday dinner at Restaurant Mavi.

Usually I paint a card for such an occasion, but I wanted to do something different as Peter is blind. I got the idea of "writing" Braille using those multi-coloured candy dots that I remembered from when I was a kid. They came on a long strip of paper, like adding machine paper, and you bought it by the inch.

I didn't know if this candy is still made, but there is a candy store nearby on trendy Elgin Street (upscale, nothing like the neighbourhood candy stores of the '50s and '60, except it sells retro-style candy). Sure enough, they had the candy dots. No longer by the inch, of course, it comes in a sealed packet of about 12 inches for $1.50.

I got the translation for "Happy Birthday" from a Braille tranlsation website and cut the candy paper to match. It was esp easy because the sheets have three dots per line and Braille letters are based on a three dot line. I did have to squish the letters for the word "birthday" to get them to fit in 8-1/2", but it was pretty obvious from the context.

I didn't have a good glue handy, however, so I used scotch tape. I took one quick photo before leaving for Montréal and only afterwards discovered that the photo was too dark and the tape photographed with a glare. The card itself looked fine, though, in real life.

And I highly recommend Restaurant Mavi. It's a small restaurant on a side street, 5192 Gatineau, Montreal, specialising in terrific Portuguese grilled chicken accompanied by equally terrific french fries and salad, all in generous servings. The décor's not much, but that gives it a sort of off-the-beaten-track charm, and the service was exceptionally pleasant.

Patterson's Creek

Went painting Monday evening at Patterson's Creek with Susan and Martha and sketched the O'Connor Street Bridge. Didn't do much outdoor painting last summer, but was at Patterson's Creek in July of 06 and sketched the Driveway Bridge.

Martha's Garden

Two weeks ago at our Jack Purcell Community Centre watercolour workshop, Martha brought in some beautiful honeysuckle from her garden. Then last week, she brought in some incredibly pink peonies that her neighbour had given her.

Omer de Serres leaves Centretown

I was the last customer at Omer de Serres as it closed its Bank Street store for the final time on May 31st. I knew the 31st was their last day ... however I didn't know they were closing 1/2 hour early. So when I arrived around 5pm, I thought there were a lot of last minute bargain seekers milling around the store ... turned out they were movers. So much for my observational skills!

I bought a 4x6 pocket sketchbook, moleskine style, house brand. Over the past few weeks, they had been giving away coupons with each purchase .... $5 off at their new store. Since I was the last customer, they gave me a whole bunch of them, which I'll pass on to my artist friends this week.

Their new store opens June 6th at the St-Laurent shopping centre. There's been an art supply store at Bank x McLeod for decades ... E-Z Art for a long time; then Loomis & Toles (I think they bought out E-Z Art); Loomis & Toles was bought out by Omer de Serres. Although in recent years, they had been getting heavier into crafts and scrapbooking (at the expense of fine art supplies), I will really miss having Omer de Serres in walking distance. Fortunately, Wallacks Art Supplies is still in walking distance. They've been on Bank Street since 1927 or something like that ... hope they stick around!

Albany

The top picture is a section of the NY State Capitol's roof.

The second picture is from a sketch of 714 Madison Avenue, next door to where my friend Sue used to live.

Rochester vacation

We spent four days on Easter Weekend visiting Rochester, NY, photographing architecture and the remnants of the long-abandoned Rochester subway. A highlight of the trip was shopping in person at Rochester Art Supply. They sell many brands of pastels, some of which are not otherwise readily available.

Inktense

I recently got a set of Derwent Inktense pencils. They are water-soluble coloured pencils. I was never too keen on watercolour pencils because I felt the colours were not saturated enough. These pencils, apparently containing ink, are really saturated. After colouring the paper, just brush with water and they spring to life with bright colour.