Nicholas Pumper Art

Compared to many of my compositions, this one errs towards unorthodox. Not only is it on wood as opposed to canvas, but the paint is also very much… slapped on. Painting in such a style with far fewer discernible “exacts” can be surprisingly harder than a realistic portrait.

I decided to make the barn behind the foliage barely visible to keep the viewer inside the apple tree’s branches. With larger brush strokes, instead of opting for detail, I aimed to make the apples look like a grand prize that you reach for one after the other, each one a little further from the last. After emerging from the jungle of the branches, you think you’ve picked them all, only to see the hundreds left you couldn’t see.

For many autumns have I picked apples from that tree, throwing the ground fall into the adjacent pig and cow pastures. Then commences a winter if making apple sauce and apple pie. Simple memories like these are excessively magical, but only if you let them be.