birds eye views

I love birds eye view perspectives. Many past works have featured landscapes, townscapes viewed from above. I especially like it when the view is from only a few stories above...creating a dollhouse, miniature world version things.  I was digging in my studio drawers this week and came across this watercolour which I did in 2001, when I lived in Point Lonsdale, Australia...at the time I was interested in recording the fun things that our life there included...which was the Ripview Swim Classic....so it's very illustrative...but one thing I noticed is that it also has that same 'from above' perspective.  

Anyways, lately I've been perculating ideas to do a painting of Halifax harbour, to add to this birds eye view fetish of mine. 
 John Hartman's wonderful contemporary abstract aerial versions of cities, are marvelous and inspiring; he does big scale paintings that have such power.  
 
But what I'm interested in doing is something on a smaller scale, perhaps even a little friendly(?)...but short of getting up in a balloon above the harbour, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get much of a resource to use other than my own imagination...which is fine...but also a scary too. For now I'm sketching out thumbnails, ideas to see if I can work up something, then get enough courage to pull out a canvas and begin!  stay tuned.