#370 Brewer Road #370

The Lincoln Plein Air group went on an outing in winter to see migrating birds in rice fields. We ended up on pot-holed dirt roads about 5 miles... more

by William Lum

Title

#370 Brewer Road #370

Artist

William Lum

Medium

Painting - Watercolor

Description

The Lincoln Plein Air group went on an outing in winter to see migrating birds in rice fields. We ended up on pot-holed dirt roads about 5 miles northwest of Lincoln and it was like driving over a washboard. In the flooded rice fields we saw a mass of 10,000 birds and of course they saw us and moved to the far side of water. The looked like a mass of tiny white dots, not really paintable. Further down Brewers Road past Hicks Road in Sutter County we saw a farm with a few sheep. That’s where we decided to park on the side of the road to paint. You try to get off the road enough to not get hit by cars but not so far you step into the flooded ditch.

Plein air is challenging and you work with whatever you see and in sometimes less than friendly environments. I tried to capture the basic feeling of the farm across the pond but felt it was missing the migrating birds. I remembered seeing some flying Trumpeter Swans about 1,000 feet before we got to the farm location. So I put them in the sky to get the real feel of the area. The painting ended up having a folksy quaint look, unlike my studio work.

This 12” X 16” watercolor painting was done on Fluid 100, cold press, 140 lb paper.

Uploaded

May 3rd, 2019