Brisk Walk Uphill
This image is from sketches & photos gathered in November, my absolute favorite month of the year. November is all gnarly, newly bare tree limbs, piles of crispy brown leaves skittering across the road, and sweaters you haven't worn for 7 months or so... I love that vibe of re-discovering my winter favorites and piling them on to saunter through brisk days, thinking about Christmas shopping and baking... Sitting here in mid January, that feeling has evolved... I am filling my online shopping carts with all kinds of new fashion looks, new rugs, chairs and new paint colors. The novelty has worn thin on rediscovering old sweaters, and I way over baked this year - enough cookies!
This dynamic is not new. In my past corporate life(10 years past now!), every year I had a trade show in early February in Las Vegas. Even though I'd been there a million times, in February, Vegas was a beacon of sunshine & newness. I'd always return having read new books on the flights, eaten great food, spent time with friends, and eaten really well. This blissful recollection ignores the stress and drama associated with those trips, the meetings, work politics, weather delays, etc... Were the trips really so enriching or more like big, entertaining distractions - who knows, they were probably both... In any case, here in 2022, I am good enduring February without a flight to Nevada(especially in this Covid time). But the Late January - mid Feb lull is still a thing to be dealt with.
New clothes and/or a new rug always help, but increasingly it's painting that I turn to. Finding new challenges, new problems to solve. Last year I learned to paint digitally, which was amazing, and made me feel like a new, more "up to date" person... This year oil painting is capturing my imagination. It is such a rich, luscious medium, and I am really enchanted with finding my way to work with it.
Back to the painting...This day I chose to paint was so sunny - that clear, haze free sun only cold air allows. On this particular road the golf course keeps its green velvet far into December, and brings an unlikely lushness to the otherwise sharp, dry landscape. I tried to capture that contrast with my brushstrokes, using all sides and angles of my brushes to get the various grasses, rocks and leaves. It was fun slathering on that kermit the frog green in the back left :). It's not a trip to Vegas - but finishing a painting has its own charms, and doesn't leave the ringing of slot machines in my ears.