February 2015

The second class project for my watercolor painting class was to be a winter scene based on a summertime photo of a rocky coast. Ron wanted us to mask out tufts of snow on all of the rocks. But I liked the photo as it was. It reminded me of a spot where we stopped on a trip along the sunshine coast north of Vancouver, BC in 2003. I have no idea where the photo was really taken, but in my mind it was coastal British Columbia. I feel like I got lucky on this one. I really like how it turned out, and it got lots of praise from the others in my class. Talent and skill certainly matter in watercolor painting, but I feel that luck plays a large part too. Some days it all comes together, and some days it all goes wrong.

About a month ago, we spent a weekend in Chico for the Snow Goose Festival. My last post included a painting of a Pintail duck inspired by that trip. One of the most interesting tours that we did was to the Rancho Llano Seco, a large area of protected land in the middle of the Sacramento Valley. As the day ended, we stopped at the edge of an area of wetlands to watch the ducks and geese. Then at sunset, a huge flock of Sandhill Cranes flew across in the distance. We only knew that they were cranes because out tour guide told us. They were too far away to see clearly without a scope. It all made a beautiful scene which I captured in several photos. I started this painting right after I finished the one of the rocks and sea, and I feel that I got lucky once again. Large areas of blended colors often don't work out very well for me, but I am happy with this one and I think it shows the mood of the time and place quite well.

Snow

Our first class project of the winter session of my watercolor class was a snow scene of Lake Tahoe. Our reference was a photo done in a portrait format. Ron changed it to a landscape format and just about everyone followed that by adding more trees to the sides. The snow on the trees was all masked. My painting makes me wish I was there in the mountains with lots of fresh snow, especially since we are going to spend the coming weekend near Bear Valley with the family. Unfortunately, our chances of lots of snow are next to nothing. Our weather has been completely dry since last Christmas Eve, so most of the old snow is probably gone, and a big storm is forecast for the whole weekend with rain in the mountains, but no snow.

We spent the weekend before last in Chico for the Snow Goose Festival. Our friends, Terry and Mike, go every year, and they invited us to come along this time. We got to go out to lots of interesting places in the Sacramento Valley to watch the thousands of geese and ducks that spend the winter there. I took lots of photos, partly with the idea of painting some of them, and I chose one of a Pintail duck to try first. I've always thought that Pintails were one of the prettiest ducks with their elegant markings. I followed the photo quite closely to try to get the reflections in the water to look real. I think I did a pretty good job.