Moving toward abstract painting was a gradual process for the Granville, Massachusetts-based artist. She started off “doing a lot of real natural forms, as all college students do – you draw what you know. I went to UConn at Storrs [Connecticut], and I was surrounded by beautiful countryside, drawing cows and rolling hills and apple orchards and all of that traditional stuff. Still lifes and plants – things that are in your dorm or apartment.” But after awhile, Brunelle grew bored with traditional subjects and wanted to move in a new direction with her art. She began “blowing up” objects, creating what she calls “macroscopic” renderings. So, instead of painting a pile of leaves, she would paint “one giant leaf, a single leaf all by itself, or leaves overlapping but from an exploded type of view. And it kind of brought it into a different plane.”