Portfolio > 2025

Fall brought colors and light that always catches my attention. While exploring a section of woods I hadn't been in I came across this stump which caught my eye. I sat down to sketch it and after working on the shape of the stump, the mound of earth that tree had built around itself over the years, and the fallen bits and pieces of the tree I saw the background. This wonderful clear spot behind the stump that was surrounded by sunlit leaves and just shot out into space was at once an afterthought of background transformed into a stage to display the stump itself. I knew I wanted to paint this image from that moment, sitting in the pine straw in the blustery woods.