I love having a whole week of vacation to explore and paint. It’s such a treat, but it also comes with pressure. While I’m settling into a week off from work, I often feel the need to produce something spectacular. The “masterpiece syndrome” strikes, making it harder to relax, put pen to paper, and see what happens. It took me a few days to shake it this time, but I eventually found my groove.

It turned out that painting lichens was just what I needed. At first, I thought they would be too small and pokey, but having something specific to focus on helped me get going. I could build a page a little at a time, without worrying about where the whole thing was headed.

I also needed to loosen up. A few days in, I picked up an onion, sketched it in two minutes with water-soluble ink, and quickly added watercolor. That little exercise felt nicely spontaneous, and it changed how I approached the rest of the week. Later, sketching at low tide, I brought looser brushstrokes and wetter paint to the subjects at hand.

On our final day, I sketched a giant spruce tree anchored to a granite ledge in one of the island’s preserves. It was late afternoon and I had the place to myself. As the fog rolled in, I decided to simply create an impression of the moment and try to let it be.

By the end of the week, my sketchbook felt less like a test of what I could produce and more like a record of what I had noticed, which is exactly as it should be.

The island of Vinalhaven lies 18 miles out to sea from Rockland, Maine. If you like, you can see prior years’ sketches from the island by typing “Vinalhaven” in the search bar.