This picture was painted around 2011. At that time, I was getting on my bicycle with my art gear and cycling off into the Japanese countryside. I call this period my wilderness years. And one of my favorite cycling routes was this river. It’s called Ono river.
I painted this picture roughly around 2010. At this time I was struggling a lot at watercolor painting. And I noticed that I didn’t paint the trees and bushes well in nearly all my paintings during this period. But in this particular painting I painted the trees and bushes very well.
I know this painting is old. I’m guessing it was painted in 2010. But that’s a very rough guess. It could be even earlier. But I know this place.
I would have thrown this painting away long ago but there was a good painting on the other side. So this terrible painting got preserved by accident.