Sacramento Valley

 For the last project of the winter session of my painting class, we painted this goldfinch. The week before, Ron had told us that we would be painting a pelican, and I think everyone was a little disappointed when they arrived and found that he had changed his mind about the bird. This painting caused me more trouble than any in a long time. With the bird and the flowers masked, we painted the background wet-on-wet with mostly greens. I wanted my background to be fairly dark to make the bird stand out more, but I just could not get a smooth dark green without lots of visible brush stokes and splotches. I tried scrubbing it off and starting over. I tried starting the whole thing over on a fresh piece of paper. After about four tries, and still not very satisfied, I gave up and finished the bird and the flowers which were relatively easy to do. I guess one of these days I should waste a few sheets of paper and try to learn how to do smooth dark backgrounds.

I still had a couple of ideas for paintings from the photos that I took on our weekend at the Snow Goose Festival in Chico. I wanted to focus a bit more on the landscape of the Sacramento Valley rather than the birds, the long-distant views and wide open spaces, and the funky little towns. This painting is based on a photo from the bird viewing platform on 7 Mile Road in Rancho Llano Seco, a very large area of protected land in the middle of the valley. During the winter, much of the valley is flooded rice fields, which makes it a great place for ducks and geese. In the distance, the Sutter Buttes rise as an isolated volcanic formation in the middle of the flat valley floor.

There are many little towns scattered around the valley. Most of them are rather sad looking with abandoned businesses and a few old homes. I think they once served communities of family farms, but large corporate farms have made them obsolete. This painting is Butte City, and there is not much more to the town than what you see here. I found the sign on the store amusing, and I had to stop for a photo. I guess it wouldn't be so funny if I were a duck hunter. When I was a boy, my grandma had me pluck a chicken for her, and I imagine that plucking a duck would be a similarly tedious job. Duck hunting is still a popular activity in the valley, and through the day we heard lots of gunshots across the fields.

March 2015

I was quite inspired by all that we saw at the Chico Snow Goose Festival -- the countless birds, the Sacramento Valley landscape, and the changing light as each day progressed, and I took lots of photos. In choosing images to paint, naturally at least one had to include the festival's namesake, the Snow Geese. We got to see lots of them, usually in tightly crowded flocks on the ground. We saw this flock as we slowly drove around the several mile loop at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. Most of the way, you are not allowed to get out of the car because it disturbs the birds, so I was shooting through the car window. Something caused the birds to fly off, and I got a shot just as they were starting to leave. I had thought about trying to blur the birds in the air to show their motion, but I couldn't figure out how to do that and still have them look like geese. I like my painting anyway.

Barns always seem to make good subjects for painting. I found this one on a hike in the Hayward hills. The Ukraina Trail in Garin Regional Park starts next to Stonebrae Elementary School and runs for a couple of miles into the hills next to the Stonebrae golf course. On the way it passes the site of the farm of Agapius Honcharenko, a Ukrainian priest who spent half of his life in exile here in Hayward in the latter part of the nineteenth century. He was a very interesting character, and his fascinating story is worth looking up. This barn is next to a park residence and is unrelated to Honcharenko. I am quite pleased with my painting of it.

In my painting class, our assignment was a seascape based on a photo of the rocky shore of Pacific Grove. I got plenty of praise from the rest of my class, and I think I did pretty well too. As is often the case with watercolor painting, there was a good deal of luck involved. Some days my washes come out the way I want them too and some days they don't. When I'm lucky, a little touch-up is all it takes to make things look good.