Rachel Stepek · Lakehouse Portrait Co.

Artwork rooted in Appalachian water, wildlife, and habitat

I’m Rachel Stepek, the artist and founder of Lakehouse Portrait Co. I make lake, wildlife, and botanical artwork from the freshwater places I return to in southeastern Kentucky.

A fish beneath the water’s surface, a native flower on a sandstone bank, fungi returning a fallen log to the forest—the artwork often begins with details like these.

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Rachel Stepek on a boat with green lake water and a wooded bank behind her
Rachel Stepek near Laurel River Lake in southeastern Kentucky
Rachel Stepek in the woods beside blooming native rhododendron
With native rhododendron in the woods near the water

The work begins outside

The water and woods come first

I live near Laurel River Lake and the Daniel Boone National Forest. Boating, fishing, walking the banks, and returning to the same wooded edges give me the reference photos and ideas I bring into the studio.

I grew up fishing and exploring creeks, and I still find many of my best ideas while looking around with Nathan, my family, and our dogs.

As a neurodivergent artist, I pay close attention to reflected color, shallow-water light, moss, rocks, plants, wildlife, and the small changes that make one freshwater place feel different from another.

The subject is the whole living place: water, bank, stone, roots, plants, fungi, wildlife, and changing light.

Silent video

The details that become the work

I made this video from my photographs and artwork. It moves from water, plants, fungi, and wildlife to artwork on canvas, paper, and cloth—and puzzles spread across the table.

No audio · On-screen text · 1 minute 20 seconds

Field observations

I’m always gathering reference photos

I use iNaturalist to organize the reference photos I take of plants, fungi, and animals near the water. I make them for my own artwork, but I’m happy when other artists find them useful—and when scientists can use the observations as part of a larger biodiversity record.

See how I build the field record Explore An Artist’s Appalachian Color Guide

In the studio

One artist. Different tools.

My work moves between digital painting and oil paint. Reference photos, composition, and color guide both.

Years of custom framing also shape how I think about scale, material, and how artwork fits into a home.

Digital painting I build each piece through layered brushwork, color, composition, and editing.
Oil painting I make one-of-one originals by hand with oil paint.
Rachel Stepek beside an original bobcat oil painting
Rachel with one of her original wildlife oil paintings

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Two collections, each with its own living world

My artwork is available through the Canvas Collection and Lakehouse Goods.

Great Blue Heron on Lake Keowee shown as a finished canvas print

Canvas Collection

Lake water, freshwater wildlife, native plants, and remembered places on ready-to-hang Canvas and, where available, archival paper giclées.

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Chipmunk Under the Sassafras artwork with an Eastern chipmunk, sassafras leaves, ferns, fungi, and forest-floor habitat

Lakehouse Goods

Colorful, habitat-rich woodland artwork as archival matte Art Prints, wall tapestries, and Art Puzzles.

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If you love the water too, you’ll probably understand.

Some people remember a place by the photograph. I remember reflected color, the line of a wooded bank, the plant I looked up later, and the evening light when no one is ready to go back in yet.

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