A bed of flower in the last sunlight on a summer evening

A beautiful cottage on Northshore of Clear Lake in summer morning light

A beautiful cottage in summer morning light on the North Shore of Clear Lake of Riding Mountain National Park. Painted this cottage just a few days before I left for China in June and never got a chance to take a picture of the finished painting. Yesterday morning I had the pleasure to meet its owner for the first time and she graciously let me to take a picture of it hanging framed nicely on her cottage wall.

Home under the prairie sky Brandon West

Wife's garden

The wife's Garden a quick oil sketch in the evening braving the vicious assault from swarms of mosquitoes

A sense of home --- from our patio in our backyard on June 13, 2016 my 25th anniversary of moving from China to Canada and calling Brandon my home.
Each year I will mark this special day in my life with a painting reflecting on aspects of my life as a journey. As I have shared before on Facebook with friends Three existing life circumstances accompanies my early years of growing up in the then Communist China : I lived a life of political repression, a life of sensual deprivation, and a life of geographical isolation. Instead of diminishing me in their intended ways, each inadvertently empowered and enriched me in its own unique way. It seems a bit paradoxical for me here to express my thankfulness for each of these forces.
I am thankful for my early life experience with political repression in China. Without that dark passage of my early life, I would never have been so keenly appreciative of what a world of light we are living in today in Canada with so much freedom of choices.
I am thankful for my early life experience with sensual deprivation in China. Deprivation of things materialistic has made me easily satisfied and satiated with simply things in my life as if any more of it would be way too rich for my simple palate,on the other hand the deprivation of my early opportunity to be exposed to what is best from human civilizations in terms of knowledge, art and culture has only created an avalanche of unquenchable thirst and desire in me for anything that is beautiful under the sun. I remember the yearning for reading was so strong in me when I was a young boy, and the pang of deprivation of any access to books in particular and education as whole was almost as painful as hunger and starvation. I remember how in late 70s when the changes in China suddenly lifted ban on what we were allow to read , the sense of joy from the fact that I had the freedom and opportunity to read again was so visceral . Who would find his heart palpitate so much at the mere sight of a new book on a bookshelf in a bookstore as if he were on his first date.
I am thankful for the geographical isolation that I found myself in the moment I was born. Fenced in by Altay Mountains on one side and blocked in by Gobi desert on the other, I literally could not see the distant horizon. The sense of isolation was so strong and so tangible that it only created an unstoppable urge and momentum to break the physical barrier to get out of it despite of all the odds. It is the same force of desire to see a distant horizon that propelled me to pick up English from scratch at the age of 18 totally on my own. There was simply no utilitarian value of learning a foreign language then in China. Only in my mind’s eyes I somehow instinctively felt that the English language might eventually open a new window onto a distant horizon. It did eventually. It led me first out of the isolated Northwestern China to the coast area of China and then eventually led me all the way out of Post Tiananmen Square China to Canada.

25 years ago today, on 13 of June 1991 Having been flying over the pacific ocean for 12 hours after bidding my farewell to my loved ones left behind in China, and when I caught first sight of the beautiful west coastline of Canada from the air, I sobbed uncontrollably, two forces were tearing through my heart at that particular moment: overwhelming sense of sadness over my separation and overwhelming sens of joy over the start of my new life in Canada, the two mingled together and melted into stream of tears.

Another beautiful home in Brandon West early in the morning

Prairie Fire House Restaurant now and Brandon Central Fire Station then

Dinning with Style at Brandon Prairie Firehouse Restaurant , the former Brandon Central Fire Station. It is so delightful to see the successful transformation of an old historical heritage building into a modern fine dining house in downtown Brandon. I stopped by with my French easel at 4:30 pm today and left at 6:30 with this oil painting of it. Hopefully I did capture the endearing and cozy moment on a beautiful Saturday evening. It was almost exactly 25 years ago and in almost exactly same kind of warm wash of evening light, I stepped down a Greyhound Bus after so many hours of traveling from shanghai China all the way to Brandon Manitoba alone leaving the wife and two year old daughter behind for five years starting a lonely and adventurous journey that have totally changed my own life. To mark my 25th anniversary, here is the painting for today.

Ecole Secondaire Neelin High School Brandon Manitoba

École secondaire Neelin High School-- home of Spartans Brandon Manitoba early in the morning

A Stately Home in Brandon West early in the morning

the enchanting swinging bridge of Souris Maniotba in early summer

Next we stopped by the beautiful bridge and painted this view to my heart content!

The Dumbars Farm on a beautiful early summer morning in Souris Manitoba

Drove out to the farm to paint with their lovely dog greeting me.

Time to sow and time to bloom a window view on a spring morning

Union Shoe Store in early morning light on Rosser Avenue of Downtown Brandon

A glimpse of our patio in late afternoon sunshine

Blooming pots of flower on our patio

When lilacs s are in bloom , a charming house on 6th Street in Brandon

Came to this charming home on 6th Street in Brandon in the early morning light when the lilacs are in bloom.

A spring morning in May on Balmoral Bay

Balmoral Bay at 9 a.m this morning. Life is beautiful indeed with bright early morning sunshine, with garbage bins being ready for collecting at the curb of the street, with a lady walking her small dog passing by , with a wild turkey dashing her way across our front yard and on top of all these visual displays in front of me is filling up the air from CBC Radio 2 Brahms' Violin Concerto. Life is beautiful indeed! It does not take much to make a painter like me to be happy and content.

Snow in May in Spring

Blossoming in the afternoon sunshine

Blossoming in full afternoon sunshine across the street. Stepped outside after supper and came back in an hour with this painting of the blossoming tree on our neighbor's front yard on Balmoral Bay Brandon at 6 p.m.

Blossoming tree across the street on Balmoral Bay

The new Y building in Brandon on a cloudy morning

Downtown Brandon early in the morning a touch of Irish

Early spring morning on Balmoral Bay

Downtown Brandon on a spring morning

St. Matthew's Anglican Cathedral of Brandon Manitoba on Easter Sunday afternoon March 27, 2016

St. Matthew's Anglican Cathedral of Brandon Manitoba on Easter Sunday afternoon March 27, 2016 --- Just came home from painting out today. Stopped at St Mathew's on 13th Street and spent two hours painting there. A beautiful day with a bit cloudy sky but much warmer than yesterday.

Manitoba Provincial Exhibit Brandon Manitoba

The Dome Building ---- Manitoba Provincial Exhibit . Just came back from my stop at Keystone Grounds with this painting of the dome building. It was so cold and windy that I had to hold down my easel with one hand firmly to keep it from being blown away. However, in the middle of painting for one terrifying moment, my easel was knocked over by a strong gust of wind with my pallet , turpentine and paint and brushes scattered all over the ground. I did not give up however, picking up my scattered brushes, I continued to finish the painting with both hands and feet numb with cold,

In the early morning light

Augustines's of Canterbury Roman Catholic Church of Brandon Manitoba

Augustines's of Canterbury Roman Catholic Church of Brandon Manitoba on Good Friday Morning March 25, 2016 It is Good Friday today and it is only natural for me to stop at this magnificent place of worship to paint my third painting for today the Good Friday despite of the sub zero temperature and gust of cold wind blowing right into my face. After two hours of painting my hand get too numb with cold to hold paint brush steady.! I remember St Augustine is one of very first church buildings that came into my sight when I first moved to Brandon 25 years ago from China and spent my very first day in a place on the corner of 15th Street and Lorne Avenue. Through that big window facing Stanley Park there , I remember how comforting and how strengthening my very first sight and sound of the towering church with its bell in the distance down Lorne Avenue seemed to

Over the hedges -- sign of spring

Full Moon Rising