On Seeing the Woods Instead of the Trees

Elysian ©Kesler Woodward 2026 Acrylic on canvas 40″ x 30″

I’ve begun to wonder lately whether for half a century I’ve been unable to see the forest for the trees. For fifty years I have painted the trees of the northern forest, calling attention not just to their beauty, but to their individuality, their strength, and their vulnerability–the way what has happened to them in their lives is reflected in their stature, posture, seasonal “dress” and aging “skin.” In a very real sense, trees have long stood in for people in my work.

This summer I have been determined to paint not just trees, but the forest. Elysian, my latest effort, is a portrait not of trees, but of early fall light in the Great North Woods. The light of the North in August is both elysian and elegiac. In late August the birches, aspens, alders and willows begin to don their too-brief blaze of color. They soon start shedding that spent summer clothing, as they prepare to dance naked into the coming night. That transformation is underway, already opening the early fall forest to something that will not be darkness, but the lower, softer, equally beautiful light of winter.

Forest Song ©Kesler Woodward 2026 Acrylic on canvas 40″ x 30″

Forest Song is July in the boreal forest. The seasons…all but the six-month winter…fly by in a rush here in the North. Leaves that emerge suddenly over two days in May burgeon in the midnight sun, greedily harvesting the continuous light of June and July. They darken the woods and close them to both sunlight and easy inspection. I love seeing the way the brilliant light finds its way in–splashing bright spotlights on bits of the white trunks, deep into the forest.

Into the Woods Drawings ©Kesler Woodward 2026 Pen and ink on Arches Cover paper 9″ x 6″ images 11″ x 8″ paper

I am continuing this year to use drawing as a way to explore my way into new directions. When I decided to work on painting the forest, instead of just the trees, I did these pen-and-ink drawings first. They were a way to look harder at and think harder about what I wanted to say about the forest, and they were very helpful.

These are not “sketches,” in the sense of quick, rough jottings, but finished drawings that I take just as seriously as I do working on a large canvas. Every time I go to work in my studio, I want to make the best work I can.