Autumn Embrace

This scene depicts a moment from an autumn family walk with my mother-in-law and daughter. My daughter had seen such a scene of colourful leaves on the ground, and couldn’t hold back her excitement. Here, she dramatically and affectionately hurls herself at her grandmother in an embrace.

At around this time, I was doing basic Chinese ink painting exercises with bamboo as a subject. I incorporated some of what I learned from that work in depicting the tree trunks here, including using dry brush technique for some of the bark texture, and different paint values to give a sense of depth to the forest.