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.