A Cold Warmup

This story begins . . . when? When I hopped into a challenge between friends to do some inktobers in 2020 and failed miserably? When I reentered this year with the determination to make it to the end? I don't think it's important, except for the fact that the prompt for this was "Memories." And it was the very last one on our list.

It's important because it's ironic. I hadn't counted the inktobers I had done up to that point, and many of them without a title or date. So by the end when I had them all together, I couldn't tell where I'd made a mistake . . . but I already had my 31 ink drawings to complete the challenge officially. I FORGOT I didn't need to do MEMORIES. Getit. Getit. Getit. Yeah I'm an idiot. Hahaha

But I really, really wanted to do this one. Something in me stirred at "Memories." I'm someone who really feeds off nostalgia, memory in a wider sense, even though it's distorted and abstracted and imprecise. It carries emotion, and identity. Just like places do. I'd say in many ways the mind and place are the same thing.

But on what this picture really is about, where it is set: It's my mom's hometown. A little "nest" in Thuringia that I have many fond memories of. The timber frame houses and the old garden were just some of the highlights of my childhood visits there. Loved my grandparents of course, been a few years now that it's only grandma. We tend to visit grandpa's grave when we come over, and this time I saw this tree in a new light.

Grandma and me halfway back up the slope from where grandpa's grave is, we turned around. Mom stood next to it, still in thought, under the last of the yellow leaves. The gentle mountains around us a quiet purple before nightfall. I can precisely remember that emotion, of wanting to remember. I didn't want a picture of it, I wanted to know it forever. We don't have many days.

God I'm so sentimental :P

The town I depict is nowhere close to the original, but after all, what mattered to me most was the feeling of it. I began with a very simple, loose ink sketch, without an underdrawing, going purely by intuition and the music I was enjoying. To simplify the colouring, I simply turned the same brush larger. No blending. Future versions may frame the tree better, have more precise architecture and a better use of the larger trees around. What I like about it is the range of colours changing from foreground to background, as I had to pick each one from the colour wheel (decisively) as opposed to blending, and picking from the canvas. That may be the key to a good landscape for me, for now. We'll see if I   r e m e m b e r.

This also reminds me of a brief piece of advice I've snatched up on painting: In the process, the painter should attempt to tie the picture together through a consistent emotion they wish to translate from the subject to the audience. I think the more I've worked, the quicker I've worked, the more I've understood how to do that. And this picture has the most emotion I think I've put into something in a long time. Very gratifying.

Now, treat yourself to something! And remember to be sincere to your loved ones from time to time. Happy first of December <3 Thank you for reading.