Lake Tahoe Workshop Recap - Day 1

Just returned from a wonderful workshop in Lake Tahoe where twelve students and I painted beautiful meadows, boulders, snowy peaks and the blue blue lake for three days. I came home sunburnt and exhausted, but I had a merry ol' time with a bunch of ladies whose endurance put me to shame.

But let me start at the beginning. On Friday morning I trekked up the mountain. Lake Tahoe is only a couple of hours' drive from my home but it is another world up there. The lake itself is 6225 ft above sea level, and the surrounding snow capped mountains rise to more than 10,000 ft. Truly spectacular!

This morning, I wanted to check out Hope Valley to see if it would be suitable for my workshop. I've been there many times, but I wasn't sure about the weather conditions - we've been having crazy weather lately, including some snow days here at Tahoe recently - and I wanted to be certain there was ample parking, views, restroom, shade.

The pic above is what the valley looked like when I arrived. Drizzly and cold, but beautiful.

As I had hoped, there were plenty of parking spots, and the one restroom in the area was open and working. Views aplenty, too. There was no snow on the ground, but the mountain tops were white. Aspen in this area were still mostly bare, but there would be some color provided by other vegetation.

The creek running through the length of the valley was a full-on river this time around, thanks to all the precipitation this winter and spring.

Satisfied, I headed to our base station in South Lake Tahoe. I arrived at the big house Barbara rented for us, and said hellos to my unruly group of students, had my cup of coffee, and planned my demo for the afternoon.

It was drizzling off and on, but not cold like it was last year - that was a doozy - The sun would come and go, teasing us with possibility. I didn't want to have to set up out in the open only to be forced to abort due to rain (Murphy's law suggests this is likely to happen) so I finally decided to set up on the covered porch of the house, and paint whatever I could see from there. And here's my demo;

Some of the students thought I was joking when I said I was going to paint the van, but I thought it would be fun to try to make a nice painting out of something you wouldn't normally think of as a "paintable" subject matter. My choice was either this van, or the barbeque grill on the porch, and I opted for the van because I liked the inclusion of the blue. (the grill was black)

This was my view. The sun came and went, changing the light every minute, so I used it to demonstrate how cast shadows from trees, etc. are to be designed to suit your composition, and not to be copied literally. I rather like the dappled light on the deck in the foreground.

After the demo, the rain pretty much stopped for good, so the students ventured forth with their gear and painted near the base station. The beach was close by, and we had this view from there. Where else but Tahoe would you see a steamer with an alpine back drop? I was making my rounds from easel to easel so I didn't paint it, but it sure was tempting.

Later that evening, we all went out to dinner at a local restaurant and predictably, I ate too much. They had Rogue Brewing's dark porter on tap, which I thought were pretty damn tasty. I know you wanted to know that :-)