Category Archives: Medium

New Painting: Spring on the Rocks, Pastel

Spring on the Rocks, pastel on Pastelmat, 5x5, 2026 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

“Spring on the Rocks” features that first flush of color, mosses, ferns, violets, speedwells, and a sprinkling of spring beauties just catching the sun on a rise of limestone draped with last year’s leaves. Yes, a little abstract, just a small, quick sketch, practice, but I think I caught the light and shapes and colors […]

Wandering in the Snow

So was the trail wandering in the snow or was I? Or both of us, me following the trail’s example, though I did step off the trail plenty of times. Today the temperature hit 50 degrees, and the thermometer on my deck actually read 60 degrees for a while, though I could tell when I […]

Avoiding the Photographer But Caught By the Artist

The girls—two does from the small herd that lives in our back yards—were hiding behind my scruffy little hemlock while I was hovering around in the snow in the back yard trying to get their photo on a snowy, sunny morning the previous February. It’s a watercolor, 12″ x 18″, from 2022 that had been […]

Turn Around to See: Winter Sunset Reflections

Winter Sunset Reflections, 7” x 17”, pastel © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I painted this scene for my August 2014 exhibit “Sun Shadow Ice & Snow: Seasons of the Panhandle Trail” during Rock the Quarry, the annual fundraiser for the Panhandle Trail. I decided to do this painting at pretty much the last minute, though I’d been visualizing it for years. The scene is one I’ve often […]

Frosty Morning, Just Before Sunrise, View From My Window

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

It looks like this out there these January mornings. 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 […]

Angled Winter Sun, Winter Still Life, Fresh and Vintage

Winter Still Life, pastel, 8 x 10, 2014 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

That deeply angled winter sunlight reaches farther into the windows than summer sunlight, into the corner with the fruit bowl. I’ve been looking at the late afternoon sun hitting this vintage ceramic bowl where I keep my apples and enjoying the shapes of the apples, the reflections on the bowl with its uneven design in […]

Colorful in Winter

"Colorful", 11" x 15", soft pastel , 2015 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Even if you live in the city you’ll find wildlife everywhere. “Colorful” is one of my favorite duck images on Chartiers Creek from my walks to Main Street. I took the photo several years ago of the mallard balancing on one leg with morning sun reflecting brightly off off a yellow brick building on the […]

Walking the Tracks

Even when there’s snow, there’s still a lot of color in the landscape. I regularly walked railroad tracks for my Sunday hike, a day when few if any trains ran. They’re not too different from other established trails and are kept clear, and the views are interesting, going past the backs of everything, and even […]

Night Window

This is my neighbor’s house and a scene I see from my kitchen window. Years ago, every night the light was on in this window and the beacon felt so familiar that it was like a part of my own home. They told me it was their living room so the light would always be […]

The Inspiration of Clementines

Clementines, pastel, 10" x 5", 2014 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

This is the cool thing about being an artist: anything can be an inspiration, including the angled autumn sun on some clementines you just bought, and you not only get to paint them, but then you get to eat them. It’s a great deal. This painting is done entirely in Sennelier soft pastels on Fabriano […]