Capturing Frosty Morning Impressions: A Mental Notes Method

By lindywhitton on July 3, 2024

Postcard No:7

On our way to take the cat to the vet this morning we headed into the big bend at Castle Forbes Bay to find a thick, white frost covering the sedge, grasses and the old apple orchard. I caught sight of a few bulrushes almost ready to burst their velvety head all covered in a rime of sparkling frost and framed by the reedbed that fills the little bay stretching out into the river proper. On the edge of the wetland was a little strip that was lit up by the morning sun contrasting so warmly and strongly against the white frosted reeds.

We couldn't stop so I fixed it in my memory to use for my daily postcard once we were home again.

Painting of bulrushes covered in frost against a background of frosty reeds, a sunlit strip of reeds, a river and hills.

Sometimes it's those scenes I catch out of the corner of my eye that really make an impression and often it's the one's that I couldn't photograph that stay with me the longest.

I've learned to make a mental note immediately before the moment is forgotten in the business of the day...what was it that was so captivating? how would I describe the colours? what was the feeling it evoked? These are the types of questions I ask myself and then I store them away until I can get some paint or pastels to make a quick sketch.

Sure , this little postcard doesn't have all the details from this morning's frosty vision but it has enough that I'll be able to work it up into a larger painting because I have the main elements that originally inspired me.

I've learned to make a mental note immediately...

I can think back to a handful of fleeting images that have stayed with me for years because I made a concious effort to memorize the look, feeling, and mood and I think I could paint them even now without any photos or sketches for reference. It's a great tool to have in your artists kit to be able to make those mental notes that will imprint a scene in your memory so next time you go to grab your phone to snap a photo and realize you left it at home try mentally describing the scene in a short sentance and then attaching a one word answer to each of these questoins:

How did it make me feel?

What was the main colour family?

Was it a warm or cool subject?

Is it hi key (light and breezy) or low key ( darker and more atsmopheric)?

Would I paint it landscape, portrait or square?

Impressionist or detailed?

My frosty scene memory was captured like this: Tall frost tipped bulrushes against a white sedgeland with a strip of warm sunlit reeds and the river beyond. Chilly, whites, cool, high key, portrait, impressionist.

If you have a different way of fixing important scenes in your memory I would love you to share it..my memory needs all the help it can get!