With a fierce snow storm all day, I dipped back into the box of paintings and pulled out some old paintings I did of Bolton and surrounding area. This one shows a flower planter on my parent's back deck, with a view of the ravine trees in the background. Many of the trees were taken down by invasive vines, so last summer I pulled up a bunch of the vines to let some of the trees grow this year.
Flower Planter on Deck, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2001 (No. 0192)
Done in the middle of 1996, this would have been among the first location paintings I ever did around the Caledon area. The scene is probably on one of the side roads that stretch north from Bolton. The painting has a lot of texture, it looks like I applied a yellowish wash then painted the green over top. At the time I did not have magenta paint, so the violet would have been ultramarine (PB29) with alizarin crimson (PR83).
Flowers and Fields, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 1996 (No. 0212)
Prior to painting on location I would go around and take photos. After getting them developed, yes it was film back then, I could make paintings indoors. I never really had a studio, in fact, this painting was done in the basement of a house I was staying at during undergraduate in London Ontario. The scene is another view from one of the lines around Caledon. I made a larger version of this one and my parent's got it framed.
Red House Study, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 1995 (No. 0203)
This was also from a photo I took along one of the lines north of Bolton. I was going for a photorealism style, but got stumped at the cow's face. Over time I went away from using photos and trying to be too realistic. Compare the first painting in today's blog to the the last few and you can see the stylistic change that occurred after the first 5 or 6 years that I painted.
Cow Under Tree Study, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 1995 (No. 0207)
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