Category Archives: My Home Town

A Favorite Spring Scene, Pear Trees on Main Street

Walking down Main Street in mid-March I could see a few buds opening already on the pear trees lining the street. Now at the end of March they are in full, glorious bloom, and in this spring scene Main Street looks alive again. A familiar spring scene When the ornamental pears bloom, Main Street seems […]

A Winter Afternoon in Ink: Library Avenue

Library Avenue, ink, 12 x 16, 2007 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

One of our older neighborhoods, familiar in small towns all across the country, each house lined up with porches and dormers and flags and hedges that make it unique, and make it look like home. I carry with me a little pouch of art materials including pencils, gel pens, fountain pens, markers, charcoal and Conte […]

Familiar Details on a “Dead End” Street

Dead End, pastel on prepared board, 8 x 12 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I love snowy winter scenes, blue morning shadows or brilliant sunsets, snowfall, surprise bits of color. Winter has long been my biggest inspiration for landscape painting. And I also love a row of houses in the sun without snow, the bare trees, the long shadows, and this dead end street has so many familiar elements. […]

Frosty Morning, Just Before Sunrise

Frosty Morning, Just Before Dawn, pastel, 17.5 x 9, 2012 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

It looks like this out there this morning. The coldest, frostiest mornings always seem to come in January, right after all the warmth and color of the holiday season. I painted this in January 2012, standing at my bathroom window overlooking the back yard, the streets below me down to Main Street, and the hill […]

Stark Winter Sun on a “Dead End” Street

Honorable Mention in North Hills Art Center Exhibit “Where Love Dwells”

"Studio Morning Shift", pastel on black pastel paper, 9 x 12 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Ironically, I wasn’t going to enter this painting, but a friend presumed I would enter “Studio Morning Shift” and I reconsidered. It was honored with an Honorable Mention in the Winter show at the North Hills Art Center. Looks like home to me! Where Love Dwells benefits Hello Neighbor, a Pittsburgh nonprofit “committed to supporting […]

“Dead End”, Late Afternoon, Winter

After yesterday’s snow, today was cold but sunny enough to melt the snow, with big puffy clouds slowly meandering overhead. I painted this little dead end street in my home town on just such a day. I love a row of houses in the sun. This street dead ends at the top of the bank […]

My Home Town Celebrates its 125th Anniversary

Main Street, September Morning, pastel, 8 x 11 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

This year the town of Carnegie, Pennsylvania turns 125 years old. This weekend is the big celebration on Main Street. This weekend is the big celebration. I don’t travel too far to paint and sketch, but find new perspectives to share on the most familiar things around me. I have many paintings and photos of […]

How Many Sunsets

Ross Colonial Cemetery, named so for the Ross family of settlers around the time of the Revolutionary War, is a tiny site on a residential street now. Each Memorial Day the Boy Scouts clean it up and place flags at the entrance and on a few veterans’ graves. How many sunsets have shone on this […]

Memorial Day Parade, from the “My Home Town” Series

“Memorial Day Parade”, 12″ x 18″, pencil, 2008 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

The good old traditional parade on the good old traditional Main Street, in my home town of Carnegie, PA. I am not a big fan of parades but my mother loved them, so every year until the year before she died I set us up on Main Street regardless of the weather and we cheered […]