Category Archives: landscapes

Curving Tracks in the Snow

Curving Tracks, Charcoal, 6.25 x 9.5 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

We’ve had some good snows for so early in the season but trains can easily navigate leaving graceful curves in the snow. The landscape is changed to nearly black and white, clear contrasts and every little branch with its tiny frosting of snow. I walk these tracks sometimes. The graceful curve of the tracks in […]

That Magical Light, This Shining Night

pastel painting of moonlight on bare trees and snowy trail

Sunset comes early and dusk and nightfall quickly follow near the winter solstice. Christmas is among the shortest days of the year, and on this particular year I headed west on the trail, hoping to capture a beautiful sunset as heavy clouds gathered, then parted, and snow squalls and flurries filled the air. The timing […]

After the Snow Squall

I round this bend frequently and it’s still a preferred route even if it takes a few more minutes to get where I’m going. I still remember when it was the remnants of a Christmas tree farm—see the snow-covered evergreens on the left—and the barn was used as a barn. After a snow squall passed […]

Paintings of Winter Beauty in a Set of Holiday Cards

Winter is my favorite season for painting. These paintings were inspired by winter in pastel, watercolor and pen and ink from the trails to my backyard, completed en plein air and indoors—often standing on my deck or sitting in the front seat of the car—illuminated by the stark light of winter. Many of them were […]

Soft November Afternoon, Shades of Red and Gold

Soft November Afternoon, pastel 10 x 8, 2006 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I did this little painting was done en plein air on a sunny November afternoon in 2006. I was photographing a conservation area owned by a conservation organization I worked with, and at that time I toted some art materials just about everywhere. The rich burnished colors of the remaining oak leaves and the ghostly […]

Autumn Along the River, Allegheny River Reflections

Allegheny River Reflections, pastel, 12, x 16 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

This is a view of the Allegheny River in Western Pennsylvania, seen from Tarentum. I took a quick walk through the park along the river on a beautiful autumn day and took as many photos as I could. The hill behind this row of trees is very high and steep and comes down to the […]

Sold Original Painting, This Shining Night

I had a “little” open house at my home this weekend, and one customer came to buy this painting. What a joy that someone who loves the painting, and loves to be out on the trail even in weather like this, now has the original to enjoy, and I know my painting is in good, […]

Autumn Rain on the Horizon

"Autumn", pastel, 12" x 24", 1997 © B.E. Kazmarski

You know those gorgeous autumn days when suddenly the clear blue sky is rimmed with darker clouds, the light dims, a wind begins, and cold autumn rain taps on the roof. This is that day. “Autumn” is a composite image from several photos I took built into an idea. I took the photos back in […]

October Sunset After a Storm: How Small Beneath the Sky

The many-faceted history of “How Small Beneath the Sky” I don’t know what it was about this image as a photograph in 2011 that stayed with me from the time I took it. It’s that sense of my tiny self, smaller than one of those dots in the valley below, one of which on the […]

The Bench, Pastel

I took a film photo of this brilliant scene in 1983 on a steep street I walked down to Main Street daily. A couple of decades later I was surprised one autumn morning to see it wasn’t terribly different. I pulled the original photo and saw the trees at that time hadn’t quite grown in […]