Category Archives: pastel

#30paintingsin30days Day 24: Main Street September Morning

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

I love quiet little street scenes, and living in a small town they aren’t difficult to find. There were people around aside from me—some of the shadows on the sidewalk are from cars—so it was just a momentary empty sidewalk. But I remember paying more attention to the two flags slowly waving back and forth […]

#30paintingsin30days Day 17: Late Winter Sunbath

Late Winter Sunbath, pastel, 6.5 x 9.5 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I’d always wanted to paint this photo of my orange boy, Allegro. I took the photo in 1993 or 1994, and it’s been on my mind all this time. I wanted not so much to paint a portrait of Allegro as I wanted to capture that moment that was so much Allegro in his quiet, […]

#30paintingsin30days Day 13: Sunset Cruise

Sunset Cruise, pastel on black pastel paper, 9 x 12 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I took the reference photo for this in 2005. It’s been waiting 12 years to be painted. It was indeed a sunset cruise…down Chartiers Creek on a perfect July evening. Not only the delicate light on the nearly still water and the clear sky gradating up to deep blue, but the curve of the hills […]

#30paintingsin30days Day Four: Sunset, Moonset

Sunset, Moonset, pastel on self-prepared board, 8 x 12 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

NOTE: The scanned image was not accurate so I photographed it and replaced it. Sometimes the moon follows the sun over the edge, especially as it did this summer evening after storms cleared. The lower sky was layered with clouds in all colors, wispy, puffy blended as if I’d put my finger up there and […]

Keep the Colors of Summer With the Summer Nature and Wildlife Sampler Box

Summer 2017 Nature & Wildlife Sampler Box

I’m happy to see gold-toned autumn colors creep into the local palette of trees and wildflowers, but the blues and pinks and bright greens of summer seem to leave too soon. That June morning when I found the back road in “A Bend in the Road”, the July morning I photographed the angel amid the […]

#30paintingsin30days Day One: Marsh Road

Marsh Road, pastel on self-prepared board, 9 x 12 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

It’s time for another painting challenge, and I’m ready. My recent trip to Savannah and to see the eclipse inspired a lot of paintings, as have my daily photos and even putting my recent Panhandle Trail exhibit together. In November I’ll have another exhibit of paintings of Carnegie. I have portraits to finish. Time to […]

Serenity, A Long Summer Sunset

Serenity, pastel, 5 x 20, 1998 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

This sailboat drifted lazily for hours on the calm waters of Lake Arthur in Western Pennsylvania. As the August afternoon tended toward evening, the sky began to grow pink and the shadows darkened and lengthened, and the serene moment seemed to last for hours. Painted en plein air as I sat on one of the […]

Taking Flight on a Summer Afternoon

"Taking Flight", pastel, 18.25" x 12.25", 2000 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Years ago I watched a documentary on the whooping crane, this huge, graceful white bird whose population had decreased to fewer than 20 birds from habitat loss and hunting by the early 1940s. Very early conservation efforts managed to save these birds from total extinction, though today there are still only around 600 birds including […]

How Many Sunsets Have Warmed This Place

How Many Sunsets, pastel, Pastel, 10 x 12, 2003 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

How many sunsets have shone on this site in Carnegie, the angled sun shining nearly horizontally on the cliff about the creek. Currently, it’s Ross Colonial Cemetery, named so for the Ross family of settlers around the time of the Revolutionary War, but the site has been a lookout for millennia as one can stand […]