Ron Kidwell, a Shreveport native and Woodlawn High School graduate, has spent over 25 years painting in oils and acrylics. A retired employee of SWEPCO, Ron is a former president of both the Shreveport Art Club and the Men’s Art Guild. He is currently serving as the vice president of the Louisiana Society of Animal Artists. Additionally, Ron has spent 25 years teaching the Bob Ross technique, sharing his passion for painting with others.


“Caddo Lake”
By Ron Kidwell

Mystical, strange, haunted, enchanted swampland is how the lake has been described. Abundant fish and game throughout centuries today Caddo Lake is all these things as well as a recreation and photographers paradise.

In the 1700s Spanish Explorers navigating the Red River were stopped by a huge log jam 80 miles long from east Texas into Louisiana. It was a maze of fallen logs, silt and debris referred to as “The Great Raft.” Searching for an alternate route they discovered a large wetland lake inhabited by a tribe of American Indians known as Caddoans. They so named the lake Caddo.

Indian folklore believed the lake was formed by an earthquake and was haunted by ancestors lost in its foggy cypress trees and moss. Adding to this mystique was a strange black substance floating to the surface they could burn for fire and light.

In the early 1800s Captain Henry Miller Shreve cleared the “Great Raft” and opened the region to commerce. Shreveport was established. In the early 1900s the black substance was oil. Caddo Lake was dammed to facilitate the first offshore drilling in the U.S in Louisiana.

In my painting I wanted to show these oil pump jacks as well as the wildlife and moss covered cypress. I have a raccoon, 4 turtles, snake, egret, 2 oil jacks, alligator, deer, ducks and blind and 2 bald eagles. Hope you can find them.