Fires All Over the West (personal)

In 2020, over the course of one week in mid-September, fires broke out across the American West. It was my first fire season. Drawing the climate’s progression and its effect on the forests was a helpful tool to process the new normal. Snow fell through the night on the fourth day, a welcome and magical sight.

To achieve this look, I:

• Used the Procreate App with the pressure sensitivity on and an Apple Pencil.

• Studied the blue spruce outside of our apartment and sketched its lines, flipping the canvas to achieve balance.

• On a new layer, I used Procreate’s brightburn brush for the twigs, the branches, and the trunk.

• Opened new layers for the pine needles, the red sun, and the skies.

• Duplicated the tree onto three more canvases.

• Used new normal layers, overlay adjustment layers, and masking to create fire and snow effects.

• Used gaussian blur on the sun and the snow to add a nice glow.