“Solstice”, pastel, 6″ x 6″, 2003 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Narrowing down which painting I wanted to feature for this holiday season was the difficult task here. I had wanted to feature one of my newer ones, like “Snowfall“—I have no shortage of winter paintings—but remembering painting the snow into these evergreens on this Winter Solstice Day in 2003 convinced me this was the painting for 2018.

This painting is indeed from the Winter Solstice in 2003. As the sun began to set on a zero-degree day with a foot or more of snow the light was so beautiful that I took off in my car with my camera and art supplies. At the top of the hill the gentle pink and coral tones of the sunset melded with the blue of dusk on the field of unbroken snow at the old Christmas tree farm, one of my favorite spots. It was too cold to draw outside since I can’t wear gloves and would soon be dropping my pastels in the snow, so I positioned my car on a convenient side road and sketched this in my front seat. As it does sometimes, the sun seemed to hang in the trees just before it disappeared: solstice, “sun-stand-still”.

The moment when the sun stands still,
as it seemed to at this frigid, snow-covered
winter dusk,
spruces standing dignified sentinel
to the moment
of transition.

It’s just a little thing, 6″ x 6″, one of my favorites, especially now that the place is gone to development. It became the inspiration for an exhibit I hosted in 2004, “Winter White”.

And this painting, which I’ve always loved so much, has a wonderful home with a friend who also loves it very much.

(This is another of those beautiful places that isn’t there anymore.)

Get a print of this painting

Register for an account and get a free matted print

The featured artwork also becomes one of the New Member Gifts for the month it’s featured as well, so if you’ve been waiting to register for an account, here’s another good reason. This New Member print is a signed digital print of my pastel landscape painting Solstice. Prints are made in archival inks on Epson Velvet Art Paper. This print is 6″ x 6″ and is matted with a pure white mat to fit a 10″ x 10″ frame.

Or purchase a print of your choice on paper or canvas

This month’s desktop calendar

Wallpaper calendars are free to download. You’ll find them below along with instructions.

If these sizes don’t work for your device, or if you have problems, please let me know. Often I can troubleshoot the reason an image won’t download or won’t load on your device, but if I just can’t figure it out I can just email it to you and hope that works.

How to download and use your desktop calendar

Click on one of the images below that matches the dimensions of your monitor to open the image in a new page.
For desktop computers and laptops, right-click on that image and on a desktop computer choose “save as desktop wallpaper” or “save as background” or whichever option your operating system gives you to be able to do this. You may also simply save it to your hard drive and set it as your background from there.
For mobile devices, press on the image to bring up a menu and choose “open in new window”. Go to that window and press until a menu appears and choose as “set as wallpaper” or “set as lock screen” or whatever you’d like—this is slightly different on all devices.

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Horizontal and HD monitors and screens

Desktop calendar 2560 x 1440 for HD and wide screens.

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Square monitors and screens

Desktop calendar, 1280 x 1024 for square and laptop monitors.

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Small Mobile Devices and Tablets

Desktop calendar, 600 x 800 for large mobile devices and tablets

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Cell Phones and Smartphones

Desktop calendar, for 400 x 712 for mobile phones.

Take a look at other featured artwork and desktop calendar posts.

Each month I feature a piece of artwork or a photo from the archives to the present day, tell its story, and set it up as a free downloadable desktop calendar for just about every electronic device available.

Other items with the same art or design To find all items on this site with the same art or design, use the search box for the name of the artwork and you'll find all that's available.

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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.