Stephanie Harold

Stephanie Harold is a Southeast Alaskan sketch artist from Hoonah, a tiny community in the mostly wilderness homeland of the Huna Tlingit. She’s a clawhammer banjo playing, fat-bike riding sea kayaker who creates evocative visual stories to bring impressions of the planet's largest temperate rainforest into everyday living rooms. Although she and her husband moved to Hoonah in 1992, she first practiced nature illustration while recovering from a severe injury that prevented her from being in the wilderness.

Living in a place where massive brown bears far outnumber people, she does much of her work on location: getting wet, chasing windblown sketches, hoping her paintings will dry before the next rain squall hits. Her work explores all levels of an environment, from toe-level to the full landscape. She tries to capture what the camera cannot, the emotional response and sense of wonder that comes from being in wild places.

Her work is available at discoverybysketch.com. Follow her on Instagram @discoverybysketch. She donates a portion of her art profits to conservation of the region’s unique environment and lifestyle.