The Artistes dans les parcs went back to what is now called Parc des Moulins, but the area used to be the Quebec zoo. Oh how I wish we still had animals to draw but politics brought the zoo to an end, a needless end.
Anyway, it was a hot day but I set up in the sun at one end of a large impound that used to house the alligators. It’s a pond with small islands for alligator basking and a building at one end so people could look down on the critters. The islands are now overgrown so while this sketch doesn’t have any alligators, it does have lots of plants. The mandatory alligator-proof wall is still in place around it and it seemed only fitting that it be included in the scene.
Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), DeAtramentis Document brn/blk, Wing Sung 8009, Daniel Smith watercolors
That must be kind of bizarre seeing all those exhibits and enclosures that used to house animals. . . . like a ghost town.
I wish we could see more of it, but when they created the park from the zoo grounds they put a big fence between the park and most of the zoo. In the park there are still the buildings for the petting zoo, the end of the primate building and the alligator pond. Unless you knew what it was, the alligator pond looks like a pond with a funny wall around it because all the small islands where the alligators hung out are overgrown so it looks sort of marshy. The petting zoo just looks like a tiny abandoned town (grin).