I celebrate occasions by getting out there and sketching, indoors or out. I always sketch on my birthday and on January 1, no matter what. I take what I call “compass readings,” just looking back at the year and letting memory speak to me. Am I doing what I am meant to? Am I heading in the right direction for my soul? Am I happy?
I may do an image related to my musings, or I may not, but I always remember the day, what was going on and how I felt.
Most often this involves sketching or painting what I see—several pages of quick images or a slow, contemplative sketch where I take my time, enjoy the day, the process and the luxury of the opportunity to evaluate my life.
This is what I saw on my birthday in 2014, sitting in a shelterhouse in a nearby state park as the gentle rain fell on the forest. I had driven around for some time, but this complex interweaving of branches and subtle colors seemed to express my life at just that moment in time, so I stopped to work.
The air was full of moisture and my paint was slow to dry—a perfect time to work wet-in-wet! I drew in the light tree with a white crayon to protect the main trunk, and laid in variegated washes to suggest the rainy forest, keeping the more distant trees simpler, cooler and bluer. “Jewels” of saturated Burnt Sienna stood in for the different types of foliage, and what drybrush I could manage under the circumstances worked for the dark cedar trees, along with a bit of spatter when the washes were slightly dried.
At upper-left in this on-the-spot rendering, you can see the effects of raindrops that blew in under the edge of the shelterhouse, making an interesting texture. Trunks and fine white branches were added later when everything was dry.