After three days of rain, the sky cleared and the wind let up.

It was time to do a little hiker-sketching at Gualala Point Regional Park in the very northwestern corner of Sonoma County. Once you head north over the Gualala River, you are in Mendocino County.

This is a great place to whale watch but at this time of the season the grays were not migrating. So I found a dry bench and sketched the vista looking northwest with the serpentine Gualala River in the foreground and the Pacific behind (featured sketch).

I choose to paint the scene in sepia, leaving the Gualala River unpainted to highlight the form and path of the river.