I was pleased to work on this commissioned painting of the BMO in Perth, Ontario. It was a gift for someone who’d worked there for years.

The person who commissioned it and I decided to “clean up” the building a bit when I painted it. Today, the bricks are stained dark from years of pollution. I worked both from a photograph they took and from an Annual Report from the 1950s (which showed the original stone colour more clearly and also included the tree, a softening effect over the neighbouring building). Here’s the Bank of Montreal today if you want to take a Google-stroll through our lovely town.

As I worked, I grew to appreciate the beauty of this stone building more and more. It was designed by Andrew Taylor and built in 1884. Taylor designed eight buildings for the Bank of Montreal. While I was researching a bit about the building in Perth, I learned that, “The 2016 census revealed that Perth has the lowest ratio of men to women in Canada: 80 men to 100 women.” Hmmm, interesting.

I love working with so many different subjects. Doing this BMO painting and its tiny signs has led to the current painting I’m working on now. It’s a local collection of barns on a friend’s property. The barns are adorned with signs of the times, now faded and rusted in many spots. Stay tuned for that one!