Bolton scenes exterior and interior

Bolton is a small community north of Toronto where I spent a good part of my childhood and my parents still live there in the family home. Backing onto a ravine, there are some good scenes of the valley and a storm pond like you see in the painting. I could not believe that geese were still trying to hang out in the last of the water, with the frozen surface slowly encroaching on them. There even appeared to be smaller ones swimming about with the adults. Hope they made it out before it froze completely. 

Last water pond, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Using some Van Gogh techniques, I created swirling, textural effects in the grasses growing down in the valley. There were also willow trees and other trees in the background without any leaves. With all the brown and beige, it was important to create energy with the directional brush strokes. In the foreground, tall grass had been matted down with sparse snow. 

Grassy valley, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

The surface of the creek was partially frozen, creating translucent reflections. To paint the reflections, I applied a thin wash of dilute blue-grey, let it dry a bit while I worked on other parts of the painting, and then painted in the reflections and transparencies. For the rest of the painting, I made sure to leave enough white showing to indicate snowfall, and to break up the blocks of brown and grey. 

Partially frozen creek, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

Turning to the interior of the house, here is a painting of a spider plant in a turquoise pot sitting on the kitchen table. Van Gogh also made still life paintings, and I tried to emulate the style, complete with trippy background. With extreme cold in the forecast, I might do a few still life paintings here in the condo. 

Spider plant turquoise pot, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025

The other day I noticed that you can see the dark side of the moon if you look closely, its the exact same value as the background sky, but with an orange tint instead of a blue tint. I got the colour about right but the value was too dark. In the rest of the painting you see stars, the houses in the background and some trees from the valley in the foreground. I was sitting at the kitchen table looking out for this one. 

Two toned half moon, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, November 2025