Sweet Gum Retrospective

 

10/20/23 Green Lake (watercolor and watercolor pencil)

My practice for the watercolor class I’m taking gave me the push to do something I hadn’t done in seven years: I took my watercolors to Green Lake to sketch the sweet gum trees. During those early years, I used to drive to Green Lake just to sketch, so it wasn’t a big deal. Now that I walk to the lake as well as walk around it, it just felt like more gear to carry when I especially want to keep my load light. But the brilliance of those trees is fleeting, and many are already past their prime, so last Friday I knew it was now or never (at least for this year).

It was my third time sketching the sweet gums this year, which is probably a record – I rarely sketch them more than once per season. But an opportunity to sketch is always the carrot dangling on the end of my fitness-walking stick, so the sweet gums got more sketchbook attention this year.

Just for fun, I went through my digital files and pulled all the sweet gum sketches I could find (shown below in reverse chronology). In addition to being an interesting retrospective of how my style has changed (or not) over the years, it’s also fascinating to look at the dates that I sketched. For example, last year I sketched on Nov. 18 – a full month later than the most recent one at the top of the post. I’m fairly certain those trees will be mostly bare by that date this year.

9/28/23 (watercolor pencil)

9/2/23 (watercolor pencil and marker)

11/18/22 (watercolor pencil)

10/14/22 (watercolor pencil and marker)

8/31/21 (watercolor pencil)

9/27/18 (watercolor pencil)

9/28/16 (watercolor pencil and ink)

10/6/14 (watercolor)

10/14/13 (watercolor and ink)

11/5/12 (watercolor and ink)

10/8/12