My current watercolor paintings seek to portray familiar animals, especially those essential to Maine’s farms and fisheries, from new perspectives. While I want my subjects to be recognizable, I minimize their environments, concentrate on negative space, and try to tread the line between realism and abstraction. I am interested in how light, reflections and shadows capture gestures and animate interactions, and how integrating small glimpses of the environment portray individual roles in a larger drama. I take my own source photos and create sketches on site for later studio work. Vibrant mackerel fade immediately upon being removed from water, so I transfer them into a small aquarium in the bow of my boat and capture their iridescent shapes in that small, sunlit space before releasing them. Creating a photo library of alewives migrating up fish ladders while ospreys circle overhead, or notebook sketches in the middle of a sheep pasture, enables me to draw on those intimate, tactile experiences of place while I compose paintings. After a 30-year career in life sciences education, I have reconnected with who I was as a nature-loving child: dwelling in that joyful, hyper-aware, process of discovery that accompanies sitting quite still and drawing or painting. By visually depicting the animals in front of me or the environment that surrounds me, I better my own understanding, and I hope my viewers will pause to look and learn along with me. __________________ A career educator, Susan worked at Harvard University for 22 years overseeing educational outreach programs for youth and teens, and working with all levels of Harvard students on teaching technique and science communication as they serve the surrounding communities. Prior to Harvard, Susan taught high school biology and was an associate producer for several PBS science series. A fervent believer that art is essential to conveying information about the natural world, Susan enjoys engaging all ages in pursuits that connect art, science, and the outdoors. Susan received her B.S. from Cornell University and M.Ed. from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has been juried into the Society of Animal Artists and the Copley Society of Art in Boston and is a Signature Member of the New England Watercolor Society. Susan resides in Portland and South Bristol, Maine.