Looking back, London Ontario, vistas, flowers, path

Looking back on my paintings from London Ontario, done between 1995 - 2004, here is a vista view of Fanshawe lake. On one side of the lake there is a high cliff area, then it descends to almost water-level. A long path went around the whole lake. I was there with friends, and stopped to paint, then caught up to them later. I just mark these 200x, like around the year 2000. 

Fanshawe Lake blue, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 200x

Here I am standing on one of the bridges over the Thames river, looking back towards the downtown core and Art Gallery. Its the multi-arched structure center right. I fit in part of a bus stop on the right edge too, nice touch, and it helps anchor the composition. If you have a road going off the side of the painting it will draw the viewer's eye away from the center of interest so its best to visually block it off with something.   

City vits art gallery, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 200x

Up in the north part of London, apartment buildings were strewn about old farms. Perhaps nowadays its all developed? This old shack made for good subject matter, and I liked the contrast between a small shack in the foreground with huge apartments in the background. 

Apartments shack old farm, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 200x

This was probably a later piece, so 2004, because I stopped using cerulean blue so much, and also the brushwork here is excellent. Looking at this makes me think I have regressed in the last 20 years!

Lilac and magenta ground cover, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2004?

Another neat composition, a tree shadow falling across the bike path. In the upper background, some rippling water from the Thames river. Its a cool painting. Since I just scan and show the best ones, its worth noting that most of the paintings from this era were... kind of lousy, maybe 1/5 were good. But it was a continual practice and trying to paint things that "I didn't think I could paint", then see the results. Some effects took me a decade to get right, and even now I have things to work on like reflections and transparencies. I've gotten better at perspective and cars. Painting 'people' is the last hurdle, including figures and portraits which I am currently not very good at.  

Tree shadow bike path, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 200x