"Promises to Keep", soft pastel on self-prepared board, 8 x 12 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Promises to Keep

"Promises to Keep", soft pastel on self-prepared board, 8 x 11 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

“Promises to Keep”, soft pastel on self-prepared board, 8 x 11 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Excerpt from Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

This panting is named for the famous poem by Robert Frost, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, which was my first thought when I walked around a bend in the trail to see this alley in the woods filled with deep snow. I’d been hiking around Kane’s Woods with a friend after a heavy snow to get as many snow photos as I could, knowing I probably wouldn’t stop to paint. Late in the afternoon in early January the light was fading but those wonderful dusky shades were filling the white and gray of the snowy surrounding.

How do you capture the bare trees with snow without drawing each twig and fluff of snow?

When I prepared a dozen 8 x 11 hardboard panels with pastel grounds I made each different, and some with texture that I would use as part of the art. To this board I applied white acrylic ground with marble dusk mixed in and rolled it with a small flocked roller. The ground mixture on the hard surface puckered and formed a textured surface.

The texture was just deep enough for me to work pastel down into the texture, then scrape other pastels over the surface of the texture to achieve the shaded appearance in the snow itself, and I also used it to scrape the darker warm gray pastel of the tree trunks over the surface in the wooded area to get the effect of the many tiny twigs piled with snow. I also used it to get the effect of the snow on the vertical trunks where it settled on the bark.

This land was a portion of land involved in the Whiskey Rebellion in Scott Township, west of Pittsburgh, in Western Pennsylvania. It’s also a trail I walked on as a child, long before it was a “trail” on conservation lands. I’m glad to be a member of the Scott Conservancy and be a part of conserving this land.

I took this photo in 2009. It’s about time I painted it.

PURCHASE THE ORIGINAL OR A PRINT

Promises to Keep, Pastel, 8″ x 11″, 2017. The original is framed in a 1-1/2″ solid wood white weathered frame with blue black core mat. Digital, giclee and canvas prints are available.

[ss_product id=’16ac1be2-dd10-11e6-99a9-002590787d08′ ]Landscape, “Promises to Keep”[/ss_product]

OTHER SIMILAR ARTWORK

I participated in Leslie Saeta’s annual “30 in 30” painting challenge in January 2017. This was my painting for day 16. Read my wrap-up of all my paintings from this painting challenge.

See all the art from this and other painting challenges on Creative Challenges.

See other landscapes in my gallery of Landscape Artwork and also see other winter paintings in my exhibit Winter White, and trail artwork from my annual Seasons Along the Panhandle Trail exhibit.

SHIPPING AND CHARGES

Shipping within the US is included in the cost of each print.

Prints up to 16″ x 20″ are shipped flat in a rigid envelope. Larger prints are shipped rolled in a mailing tube unless otherwise requested; flat shipping is an extra cost because it’s oversized.

GICLEE PRINTS

The giclees are printed on acid-free hot press art paper for a smooth matte finish using archival inks. Giclee is the highest quality print available because the technique uses a dozen or more ink ports to capture all the nuances of the original painting, including details of the texture, far more sensitive than any other printing medium. Sometimes my giclees look so much like my originals that even I have a difficult time telling them apart when they are in frames.

I don’t keep giclee prints in stock for most of my works. Usually I have giclees printed as they are ordered unless I have an exhibit where I’ll be selling a particular print so there is a wait of up to two weeks before receipt of your print to allow for time to print and ship.

DIGITAL PRINTS

Digital prints are made on acid-free matte-finish natural white 100# cover using archival digital inks. While digital prints are not the quality of a giclee in capturing every nuance and detail of color, texture and shading, I am still very pleased with the outcome and usually only I as the artist, could tell where detail and color were not as sharp as the original. Digital prints are only available up to 11″ x 17″ and some of the prints are cropped to fit standard mat and frame sizes.

Digital prints have at least 1/2″ around the edges depending on the size of the print. All are countersigned by me.

CANVAS PRINTS

Because the standard size canvas prints are not proportional to the original painting, canvas prints of this painting will have a portion cropped off.

I usually have at least one of the smaller sizes of canvases on hand, but order larger ones as they are ordered because I have limited storage space. Smaller canvases are a 3/4″ in depth, Canvases 12 x 16 and larger are 1-1/2″ in depth. I set them up so the image runs from edge to edge, then the sides are black or white or sometimes I slip in a color that coordinates with the painting. This canvas mirrors the edges of the image around the sides.

FRAMED PRINTS

I do all my own framing and can custom frame a print for you. Please ask.

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.

Flourish-darkgray-100Don’t miss any new items or opportunities!

“Follow” the Portraits of Animals blog with the link in the upper left. Sign up to receive posts in email, or in your favorite reader using the links in the right-hand column.

Sign up for e-newsletters

You can also sign up for my monthly e-newsletters to receive special discounts and find out where I’ll be with my artwork.

Click here for the Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter, for feline and animal-specific products and information.

Click here for the Art & Merchandise E-newsletter, for landscapes, nature, urban scenes and more.

For art, photos and writing as I develop it, visit my blogs.

See feline art and photos as they happen on The Creative Cat, along with feline news, health, welfare, rescue stories and more.

See daily photos as I post them on Today.

Read poetry, short stories, essays and more on Paths I Have Walked.

. . . . . . .

© 2022 | www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

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.

Leave a Reply