Category Archives: pastel

Main Street, September Morning

Every time I go back to one of my sketches or paintings of Main Street I find it’s changed again since then, lost a building or two, added some trees. The losses hurt just a bit, taking away just another bit of the older, traditional part of Main Street. Where you see the American and […]

Dawn on a Foggy Summer Morning

Yesterday and last night’s rain produced a foggy morning today. When the sun finally began to shine through the mist it reminded me of this painting from 2000. It’s the view out of one of my back windows toward the east where I always enjoy seeing what the sunrise, or at least the morning sky, […]

Serenity, A Slow Summer Sunset

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 […]

The Old Apple Tree

A little bit of mist among the trees illuminated by the rising sun, tinges of gold among the leaves, but the old apple tree will hold its leaves until they begin to turn bronze in the first frost. The land that is Carnegie Park was a farm less than a century ago, and this apple […]

Finding Inspiration at “A Bend in the Road”

June 1, 2014, on a lovely sunny day just about noon, I was leaving a morning event and on errands traveling the back roads just for fun, knowing this narrow back road had some wonderful spots. Here is one of them, “A Bend in the Road”. We never know what’s around that bend in the […]

Dusk After the Storm, as the Creek Rises and Falls

Dusk After the Storm, 9 x 12, pastel © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

So many storms lately, and I watch the creek rise and fall, one moment 12 inches deep and silently placid but so quickly a rushing torrent several feet deep. A storm overtook us as we paddled canoes and kayaks down Chartiers Creek one evening. We took out and watched it from among trees on the […]

“Let’s Go for a Ride!” on a Summer Back Road

Summer Back Road, pastel on prepared board, 8 x 12 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

“Let’s go for a ride!” Back in the 60s in homes with no air conditioning, a mid-summer car ride on a country road with all the windows open was a real treat. Funny how just riding around and looking at things was a regular form of entertainment, even in the early days of television. Ice […]

Spring Evening on the Hills

A view out my back window, a theme I’ve returned to so many times, but then, when I walk past one of the windows looking out to the east across the valley it’s already framed like a painting by the window. What an inspiration. Since this view is in the east, this scene shows the […]

Two Spring Paintings

“Suddenly, it’s spring, and most days are really sunny! After this winter it’s totally captivating, and distracting. I can’t go anywhere without seeing possible paintings. Like this these, which I photographed as I didn’t have my sketching materials with me because, for the past couple of months, there hasn’t been anything I wanted to sketch, […]

Dusk After the Storm, Canoeing the Creek

A storm overtook us as we paddled canoes and kayaks down Chartiers Creek one evening. We took out and watched it from among trees on the bank as the world turned black then fogged with rain, lightning struck just over the hills around us and the creek ran faster and faster and rose foot by […]