In early June, 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 road, but the anticipation is what makes the journey exciting.

I was driving slowly along enjoying the view, then I saw this spot and hit the brakes, gasping with awe at the complicated beauty of nature, the shapes and colors, the sun and shadow, the straight-up height of the trees along the road, arching far overhead, the road bending ahead as if you were to enter a magical place. The trees had finally reached full cover in the woods and all along the trails and I simply could not get enough. I knew I should have carried my art materials! There was no one but me on this road so I took a few photos through my windshield, then put the car in park, shut off the engine with flashers flashing and stood in the middle of the road to take photos, barefoot and listening, smelling, feeling, taking in as much of the spot as I could to remember. The light would change significantly if I were to run home and come back, the moment gone. I also knew I’d see a few other special places today, and vowed if the time came I would return and paint en plein air, but if I could not I would remember it all when I used the photos for a painting.

Often I wait years to do a painting, but in front of everything I’ve worked on for the past month has been this spot and the painting I had visualized, and something a little larger than what I’d been doing lately. Weekends were rainy, so I decided to start from a photo, then finish from memory and referencing the trees outside my windows for the closer details.

This painting is 14″ x 22″ and painted in pastel, mostly Sennelier but also a few Rembrandts and a few others I have on hand for special greens, on 2-ply acid-free natural illustration board. The illustration board with no added finish was an experiment—I am accustomed to working on Wallis sanded pastel, but that’s been difficult to find, and I want to be able to do sketches and paintings on other surfaces. I’m a little disappointed as I couldn’t layer and blend as usual, but really, no one knows that but me to look at it.

I really debated about using this painting as a desktop calendar because it’s so tall and narrow and for the horizontal layouts I’d only be able to use a portion of the art, which might take away from the effect of the tall arching trees. But I could see from working with it that the sense of the tall trees and the bending road were still there. I’m happy to share it this way.

Get a print of this photo

Register for an account and get a free matted print

The featured artwork also becomes one of the New Member Gifts for the month it’s featured as well, so if you’ve been waiting to register for an account, here’s another good reason. Your 8″ x 12″ signed digital print of my landscape painting “A Bend in the Road” is made in archival inks on Epson Velvet Art Paper and is matted with a pure white mat to fit a 12″ x 16″ frame, at no charge just for registering for an account. Visit this post to read more.

The original of this painting was a pastel, 14″ x 22″ in soft pastel on 2-ply acid-free natural illustration board.

[ss_product id=’1adb6a60-e720-11e5-a7e1-0cc47a075d76′ ]Landscape, “A Bend in the Road”[/ss_product]

The original is sold but I offer a full size giclee print framed in a plain matte black moulding with a 4″ acid-free white mat, a simple and complimentary combination for my larger paintings featuring the woods in summer, framed size is 22″ x 30″, and a 12″ x 18″ digital framed with a plain matte black moulding with a 2” acid-free white mat. I also have giclee, digital and and canvas prints.

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This month’s desktop calendar

Wallpaper calendars are free to download. You’ll find them below along with instructions.

If these sizes don’t work for your device, or if you have problems, please let me know. Often I can troubleshoot the reason an image won’t download or won’t load on your device, but if I just can’t figure it out I can just email it to you and hope that works.

How to download and use your desktop calendar

1. Click on one of the images below that matches the dimensions of your monitor to open the image in a new page.
2. For desktop computers and laptops, right-click on that image and on a desktop computer choose “save as desktop wallpaper” or “save as background” or whichever option your operating system gives you to be able to do this. You may also simply save it to your hard drive and set it as your background from there.
3. For mobile devices, download the image to your gallery then choose it as your wallpaper—this is slightly different on all devices.

Horizontal and HD monitors and screens

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Square monitors and screens

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Small Mobile Devices and Tablets

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Cell Phones and Smartphones

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Take a look at other featured artwork and desktop calendar posts.

Each month I feature a piece of artwork or a photo from the archives to the present day, tell its story, and set it up as a free downloadable desktop calendar for just about every electronic device available.

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.

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© 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.