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On special request from a student, we painted birch trees in the snow overlooking the Columbia River!

Imagine looking out from a Kalama hillside studded with birch trees at the cold Columbia River below. It's a familiar scene this time of year, especially when the snow sticks, as it did the week of Valentine's Day in southwest Washington State. Alas, the snow melted quickly. I hope this means spring is on the way.

My watercolor classes are held at the Kalama Public Library, because they have a great space for classes, and well: I love libraries! 

The challenge was to understand how to depict a tall, columnar shape (the tree trunks), in proper perspective. I explained how the marks on the trees would curve if viewed from below, above, or at eye level.  It's a subtle concept, but very important in painting landscapes.

In addition, students focused on a direct light source on the left side of the tree, in order to create the feeling of roundness against the horizon. This helped create the feeling of a three-dimensional object (the tree trunks) on a two-dimensional surface (the paper).

Finally, students practiced drawing the shapes of the trees and the distant hills. 

To make it local we added the river and some distant trees. It was fun!

Students at Work

The Final Result

This is my demonstration painting. Each student's painting was similar, yet unique, with variations in tree shapes, shadows, distant hills, water and sky. 

Thank you for reading my blog post!