Grass Returns First

Grass Returns First is a Suze Woolf watercolor painting

Painting Details
Watercolor on 140 lb Arches archival paper
15 x 22 unframed
$750
 
Painted after hiking the Pacific Crest Trail at Harts Pass in the North Cascades. After the vast Needle Creek burn, grass and wildflowers are the first plants to return, but the skeletons of dead trees are a mute reminder of how long it take for them to return.

As the climate warms, forest fires are becoming more frequent and catastrophic in the western United States. My deep anxiety with the impacts of climate change on wilderness are emerging in this series. Burned-over areas of forest are riveting. Unfamiliar tree forms are newly exposed. Formerly hidden terrain features become visible. Normal greens, blues and browns are transformed. All the worst fires of the last fifty years have occured in the last five years.

Please contact me if you are interested in learning more about any of my images. All represent original paintings, not reproductions. I have many more paintings than are shown on this site. And, since I frequently work in series, there may be additional views of the subjects shown here.