Early Watercolor Paintings

I have been painting for as long as I can remember.  Only in the past year (2013) have I realized that painting offered me a great way to unwind.  So on the one hand I paint to relax, but perhaps because of my scientific training, painting is also a way to observe the world around me.  To paint something, requires the learned skill of seeing.

Here are some of my paintings from 1992-1993.  I lost a number of early paintings because of termites that worked their way into our basement.

This painting was based on a very early photograph shown in a compilation of images from the National Geographic Magazine:

These were inspired by the zinnia's growing in our container garden:

This was based on an image in the book Painting Natures Details in Watercolor (Cathy Johnson, 1987):

I cannot remember for sure, but this may be based on an advertisement:

And this shows the town of Hoorn in Holland, based on a photo in a tourist guide: