Sketch: Lilacs and Laundry
“Lilacs and Laundry”, pastel, 9″ x 12″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
What got me in trouble today when I should have gotten some work done inside was how cute my laundry looked with the lilac blooming about it. I have a thing for laundry in paintings, so I decided to take some time to do a little sketch. I use my limited set of pastels outdoors so I don’t lose or damage the “good ones”, so I need to touch it up with some other colors and finish off the edges.
The lilac has never bloomed this much—after about 15 years it’s finally come into its prime. The red specks in the back are the first roses on my red climber that swings over the gate, the pink flowers on the chair and on the ground are the first geraniums blooming after I’ve brought them out of their winter home in the basement. The short blue is forget-me-nots, the tall is a flowering bulb called Camassia given to me as a gift years ago, still blooming reliable each spring.
Here’s the uncropped version of the sketch.
“Laundry and Lilacs”, uncropped.
And look—there must have been an artist in my yard!
An artist was in my yard!
A Day of Spring Sketches
“Spring Morning Leaves”, pastel, 9″ x 12″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
When I looked out my kitchen window this morning, above is what I saw. I couldn’t paint it because the light was changing fast at that early hour, so I photographed it and worked on it a little later. I wanted to keep it leafy with a lot of movement, so I used all my pastels on their sides.
Below are two small sketches I did of Robinson Run along the Panhandle Trail. Both are pastel, and while there are areas I am very pleased with there are also areas I am not…but it just means I need to restock my field boxes of pastels with some of the colors I’m missing.
The first sketch was:
“Robinson Run Early Spring”, pastel, 8″ x 10″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
The second sketch was:
“The Swimming Hole in Spring”, pastel, 6″ x 8″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
April Cloud Study
“April Cloud Study”, pastel, 9.5″ x 10″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
Now that the weather has turned warm and sunny the world is coloring up nicely. I decided to take some time this afternoon and paint the clouds, literally and figuratively. It’s just a little thing and really only took about ten minutes—and by that time the skies were completely different.
This is Sennelier pastel on Wallis sanded pastel paper.
Below is the cropped version. I used a scrap of sanded pastel paper and it was cut unevenly, so there is a little bit along the left trimmed off that I liked. Well, that’s the way it goes.
“April Cloud Study”, pastel, 9.5″ x 10″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
Sketch: Rain Later Today
“Rain Later Today”, pastel, 9″ x 7″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
I did a quick sketch this morning in preparation for a larger painting. I need daylight to photograph the painting, but for now here is a scan of the morning sketch. I stood looking out a window to the east, and the dawn had been very bright copper, then hazy. Soft purple clouds lay on the horizon, and the hills on the other side of the valley were just misty enough to have a blue haze indicating humidity in the air meaning rain was moving in, very simply yet colorful.
Of course, I’ve left out quite a bit—trees, houses, businesses, but this is what I saw on first looking out the window.
In the lighter area at the top, it appears as if paper is showing through the lighter tones. The paper I used is a Wallis brand sanded pastel sheet in “Belgian Mist” and is more or less kraft-colored. I prefer to begin a sketch or painting on a mid-range paper rather than light or white because it’s easier to think in terms of highlights and shadows. The pastel is actually completely covering, but the scanner light is strong enough to actually scan through this lighter pastel. It’s a disappointment and a quandary when I reproduce my art: the scanner captures much more detail and is better suited to smaller images, but this scan-through is often the result on this paper.
Hemlocks, Snowy Morning
Hemlocks, Snowy Morning, 7″ x 10″, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
The view out my side window of my neighbor’s hemlock trees with the hills far beyond and the morning sky with clouds and sun and snow. In this sketch, I not only wanted to capture the sun streaming through the hemlock and the cool colors of a snowy morning, I also wanted to capture the nature of the hemlocks, their shape and growth habit, the straight trunks with the branches that tend to break easily, the bare little twigs inside the tree, and the tufts of needles at the ends of the branches. At one time there had been another hemlock that completely blocked the view, and the sun, hence the bare insides of these trees. I hate to see a tree go down but when that one was lost in a storm it literally opened up a new view for me, and much more sunlight.
Where this site has featured a daily photo, I’ve decided to also use it for my occasional sketches. At one time I always carried some art materials with me as well as my camera. I fell away from the sketches, mostly landscapes and Main Street and still lifes around the house, as life grew a little too busy for a while to take the 15 to 30 minutes needed for a little inspiration. As when I visited the Panhandle Trail on Christmas day, I hope to post more sketches in addition to the photographs from each day.
I did not photograph this scene, only drew it as I stood at the window, so you have no photo to compare.
You can purchase this sketch matted and framed in my Etsy shop or as a variety of print styles and sizes up to 48″ x 72″ on my Fine Art America profile.
I also post daily sketches of my cats on The Creative Cat as well as daily photos, which many people follow already; today Mr. Sunshine had something to say about this sketch in particular.
Autumn Horizon
Autumn Horizon, pastel, 9″ x 12″ © B.E. Kazmarski
A sketch I did from my window today of a brief break in the clouds and a bit of sunshine on the landscape. I left the buildings and bottom unfinished because it was in such darkness, and it’s still quite wet.
Poem for Saturday: Clouds
“Autumn”, pastel, 12″ x 24″, 1998 © B.E. Kazmarski
Enjoying the outdoors just for the sake of it, or gardening, or creating, I find myself watching the clouds. Yesterday, a storm rolled in at sunset, the temperature has dropped from a balmy Indian Summer with sun to chilled and wet, and I watched heavy gray clouds march across the blue skies.
Clouds
Roiling clouds blown by winds
Before a summer thunderstorm,
Huge constructions in purple and blue
And lurid green tinged with coral.
The delicate lace of a fair summer day,
Puffs and wisps in white and cream
Shaded with lilac and blue
And edged in yellow.
Hazy wisps in autumn
Moving slowly from one horizon to the next,
Never amounting to much.
The heavy purple rainclouds of a late spring afternoon
Looming on the horizon
Shadowing the early wan sun
And promising a rainy night.
The approach of the first storm of winter
As flat gray clouds form in the west,
In their shadow bringing the first reminder
Of the eternal cold of year’s end.
“Autumn”, above, is one of a commissioned series of four paintings created to fit a frame a customer’s father had made by hand. Each window was 12″ x 24″ with no room for a mat, so my pastels would fit exactly into each space. Seeing where she lived and other art she had inspired the “Four Seasons” with images, not from the view from her windows but familiar from the region. This is a small creek running through the middle of an abandoned hay field, the mix of deciduous trees each in its own shade and reflected in the still water. The water reflects the sky directly above, still blue, while storm clouds rise from the horizon.
Autumn in the Valley, pastel painting, 31″ x 27″, 2009
Autumn in the Watershed
I featured this on the Autumnal Equinox, but it’s just as fitting today.
Sloping hills blaze with autumn color at a rocky, rippled bend in Chartiers Creek, yet on the horizon deep gray-purple clouds hover; although the day was sunny I remember it being distinctly chilly with a sharpness to the breeze, especially on the water in a canoe, and winter is literally on the horizon.
For two reasons the scene was reminiscent and inspiring: first, that I rounded the bend to see this natural splendor in all its detail, brilliant color, fluttering leaves, rippling water, changing clouds, happening all on its own with no help from me or any other human (read the poem, below) ; and, second, it was an example of that “change of season” with the gray-purple clouds of winter arriving on the horizon, two seasons blending into one another. I needed to share this image, and it was so moving that the inspiration also became a poem, and the title for my third annual poetry reading and art show at Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, Change of Season.
You can find a full-size giclee plus various sizes of digital prints, framed and unframed in my Etsy shop.
A Poem Inspired by the Scene
I actually wrote a poem about the scene before I did the painting, so inspiring was that particular moment.
Effortless
I paddled the canoe around the bend,
And was faced with the effortless beauty of the panorama,
The trees in all their colors, the sky with changing clouds,
The water moving and reflecting simultaneously,
All perfectly arranged,
I realized that my creations are but raindrops in a puddle,
Wisps of cloud that change and dissipate
My solitary accomplishments borne of great effort
Would never equal this one solitary scene
Or the one I would have seen the day before or the day after
Evolved on its own, no one to frame it and display it and promote it
As it quietly exists through the day.
We humans sometimes get to think everything happens because of us
But these trees and grasses and hills arrange themselves
And create great beauty effortlessly
Simply in the process of their everyday existence.
So I did a painting that can never match the original
So that I may remember my place.
Read the rest of the poetry from my annual poetry reading and art show at Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, in 2009 entitled Change of Season.
Paths I Have Walked, collected poems.
About Art of the Watershed and the Collected Poems
A series of seasonal images of the Lower Chartiers Watershed
“I have travelled a good deal in Concord,” said Henry David Thoreau in Walden, his paradox of exploring a small town and its surroundings teaching him as much about human life and the interactions of nature as if he had traveled rare and exotic places about the globe.
I’d love to paint faraway exotic places, but in the interests of time I stay close to home for my hiking, bicycling, canoeing, walking and painting excursions, that being the valley where the Lower Chartiers Creek flows.
I’ve seen some exquisite sights on my adventures, and committed them to various media. The most moving are the ones I’ve chosen to paint large and in detail so that I might convey at least a portion of the grandeur that moved me beyond awe to action, sharing the places right around us though most people would never see them. Thus was born the series offering an image indicative of the watershed in each season.
Visit my website to see the full set of paintings included in the “Art of the Watershed” series.
And visit my poetry page to see more about my poetry and other writing.
Autumn in the Valley availability
You can find a full-size giclee plus various sizes of digital prints, framed and unframed in my Etsy shop.
Sketches: The Living Room Concert
The Living Room Concert, 7″ x 10″, ink © B.E. Kazmarski
Live music is more special than can be described, no matter the genre. Like seeing an original painting, watching musicians perform a program of music can’t be equaled in any recording.
And hearing it in the comfort of someone’s living room makes it all the better, with no real distance between the performers and the listeners. It’s really the way music was meant to be appreciated.
This was another concert of the “Living Room Chamber Music Project” in Pittsburgh, this time at a friend’s house. Feeling more comfortable in this venue I carried my Big Bag of Art Materials intending to sketch if I could, if the muse was with me and I wouldn’t distract or interrupt the musicians or the audience. And so she was with me while I produced three sketches and lots of ideas for paintings and possibly collaboration. I love to sketch musicians while they play, letting their performance and the music itself carry me along.
The group has two pianists, Billie Jo Miller and Jack Kurutz, who play at alternate times and act as page turners for each other and sometimes play piano four hands, and a violinist, Ashley Buckley, an oboeist, Lenny Young, and a vocalist who did not perform here tonight because she is in another performance. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire concert, but hearing Spiegel im Spiegel live had me spellbound.
Schumann, pencil, 9″ x 7″ © B.E. Kazmarski
Pièce, pencil, 7″ x 8″ © B.E. Kazmarski
Read about another concert by these musicians, and more about chamber music.
Poem for Sunday: Like a Tree
Birches 1: Autumn Showers, oil pastel, 22″ x 16″ © B.E. Kazmarski
Autumn has arrived as usual, but the colors of the season are arriving earlier than is typical. Here in Western Pennsylvania with our miles and miles of tree-covered hills, more brilliant reds and yellows stand among the deep olive green as if someone had stippled a single wide brush stroke here and there on the hillside, just for effect. Because I am compelled to photograph and paint these colors I know that while we see some colors even in September, the leaves don’t begin to turn in earnest, in that big wave of change, until mid-October, yet many hillsides are already halfway there.
Because I paint Western Pennsylvania, nearly every one of my landscape paintings contains a tree, usually more than one, and often the trees themselves are the subjects; I have included a slideshow of a number of paintings, below. I have gigabytes of photos of trees, just for the trees’ sake, not to mention ones where the trees are the supporting cast. The other day I ran an errand entirely on winding back roads so that I could drive 10 miles per hour and photograph the beauty unfolding at every turn, even if they weren’t particularly good photos; the change had come so quickly that I was completely distracted and it was either that or have someone drive me or I’d wreck my car.
I had intended to take some time today to hit the trail on my bike with my camera and art materials and really wanted to paint and come home with something new; alas, it is raining, so I will share this instead.
Biding Time, pencil and watercolor, 14.5″ x 20.5″ © B.E. Kazmarski
Above, “Biding Time”, a pencil drawing of the old maple tree that guards my house, with resident mourning doves. This maple has guarded this house for over 60 years, and me for the past 22. It bears the scars of storms and age, hollow to the ground, fragile now, yet I see it multiple times every day, from my bedroom first thing in the morning to the course of the day outside my office window. Drawing this, in detail, in pencil, took several weeks, working a square inch or two in an hour or so and I got to know the tree so well; the leaves are lovely, but the trunk and branches tell the true story. I added very slight watercolor washes to show the bird’s breast tarnish and the contrast of blue on the upper feathers, and the slight gather of moss on the tree branch, all to give it a bit of dimension.
I think of the trees around me as I think of my friends, those constant presences that are more a part of us than we know. They inspired this poem.
LIKE A TREE
July 5, 2000
To live my life like a tree,
to grow steadily from small beginnings,
fervently when possible, and quietly adapt when necessary,
stand in peace and harmony with my neighbors,
bear my fruit appropriately,
bring shelter and comfort to others indiscriminately,
and when my season is over
graciously give my gift to the earth
for the benefit of myself and all around me,
and without fear
patiently wait for my moment to return
in spring.
poem © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
Enjoy a slideshow of a number of my paintings including trees in all seasons and states of being, and media from pencil to acrylic paint. You can find all of these paintings, originals or prints, on my website in Landscapes and My Home Town, and in my Etsy shop.
Read the rest of the poetry from my first ever poetry reading and art show at Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, in 2007 entitled Paths I Have Walked.
Paths I Have Walked, collected poems.
About Art of the Watershed and the Collected Poems
A series of seasonal images of the Lower Chartiers Watershed
“I have travelled a good deal in Concord,” said Henry David Thoreau in Walden, his paradox of exploring a small town and its surroundings teaching him as much about human life and the interactions of nature as if he had traveled rare and exotic places about the globe.
I’d love to paint faraway exotic places, but in the interests of time I stay close to home for my hiking, bicycling, canoeing, walking and painting excursions, that being the valley where the Lower Chartiers Creek flows.
I’ve seen some exquisite sights on my adventures, and committed them to various media. The most moving are the ones I’ve chosen to paint large and in detail so that I might convey at least a portion of the grandeur that moved me beyond awe to action, sharing the places right around us though most people would never see them. Thus was born the series offering an image indicative of the watershed in each season.
About the books and the poetry readings
My biggest inspiration for poetry, prose and artwork is the world right around me, and I enjoy the opportunity to share it from the perspective of one who walks and hikes and bikes and carries a camera, art materials and journal everywhere—even around the house—so the inspirations are fresh.
In December, 2006, two of my poems were chosen to be published on a section of the Prairie Home Companion website entitled “Stories From Home/First Person” for submissions of writing about the place we feel most familiar. I’m a long-time listener to PHC and reader of Garrison Keillor’s books as well as a daily listener to The Writer’s Almanac featuring news about writers and writing and of interest to writers as well as a poem, all compiled and read by Keillor himself. I was astonished to fi nd my poems were among the first chosen from apparently thousands, and so happy to be able to share them with a potential audience of so many similarly inclined writers and readers.
My poetry readings and art exhibits were the vision of Maggie Forbes, executive director of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, after learning of my publishing of those two poems. I owe her many thanks for encouraging me to present this combination of my visual and literary art, a first for me. Each year I am invited back to read my poetry and exhibit my artwork. I love that building, every inch of it, and the opportunity to bring people in to visit is an honor.
And visit my poetry page to see more about my poetry and other writing, and to purchase Paths I Have Walked.
Visit my website to see the full set of paintings included in the “Art of the Watershed” series.
Autumn in the Valley, poem and artwork
Autumn in the Valley, pastel painting, 31″ x 27″, 2009
Autumn in the Watershed
Sloping hills blaze with autumn color at a rocky, rippled bend in Chartiers Creek, yet on the horizon deep gray-purple clouds hover; although the day was sunny I remember it being distinctly chilly with a sharpness to the breeze, especially on the water in a canoe, and winter is literally on the horizon.
For two reasons the scene was reminiscent and inspiring: first, that I rounded the bend to see this natural splendor in all its detail, brilliant color, fluttering leaves, rippling water, changing clouds, happening all on its own with no help from me or any other human (read the poem, below) ; and, second, it was an example of that “change of season” with the gray-purple clouds of winter arriving on the horizon, two seasons blending into one another. I needed to share this image, and it was so moving that the inspiration also became a poem, and the title for my third annual poetry reading and art show at Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, Change of Season.
Detail of upper clouds.
And again, no, I couldn’t paint while paddling, and my little digital photos didn’t do the scene justice, yet other than wading down the creek and setting up an easel in the middle of the water, there was no other way of painting this. To take the scene from the tiny digital image to the full-size painting took a good bit of memory and visualization; it’s a good thing I’m very familiar with scenes like this. I don’t often work at this level of detail, especially at this size, but in order to share what I took from this moment, I found myself worker ever deeper into the minutiae of the scene so that others, viewing it, could hear the light lapping of the water, watch the clouds move, feel the warm sun on your back but the chill wind on your face, and the glory of those tree-covered hills.
Detail of that moment of change.
You really have to get into “the zone”, though, while working at that level on the painting, letting go of your space, yourself, to get back to that moment and all your perceptions from that time. I still go there when I look at the original, which was purchased and made a gift to Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall and hangs in the Reception Hall.
In the mini-ecosystem in the valley along Chartiers Creek, the color show begins a little later and the trees keep their leaves a little longer, perhaps because of the extra humidity along the water through the dry heat of late summer. The diversity of species is generally much greater in both the trees and the understory brush and grasses, which encourages a greater diversity of foliage color and shape. When the show begins, it’s absolutely breathtaking and it gets more stunning every day until a November storm rips the last of the leaves away.
Detail of reflections on the water.
This area of the creek is approximately below Rosslyn Farms, between Carnegie and Crafton. In this area, the creek’s channel was widened and dredged deeper and the banks made more sloping through the Fulton Flood Control Project, allowing all the runoff from upstream communities to flow ever faster down the valley without overflowing the banks or backing up into Carnegie, as had happened prior to the Project. Also, many of the trees were removed from the banks up to a certain level. Still, even with that modification, the channel remains beautiful and inviting in this lovely and unseen area of Chartiers Creek.
You can find a full-size giclee plus various sizes of digital prints, framed and unframed in my Etsy shop.
A Poem Inspired by the Scene
I actually wrote a poem about the scene before I did the painting, so inspiring was that particular moment.
Effortless
I paddled the canoe around the bend,
And was faced with the effortless beauty of the panorama,
The trees in all their colors, the sky with changing clouds,
The water moving and reflecting simultaneously,
All perfectly arranged,
I realized that my creations are but raindrops in a puddle,
Wisps of cloud that change and dissipate
My solitary accomplishments borne of great effort
Would never equal this one solitary scene
Or the one I would have seen the day before or the day after
Evolved on its own, no one to frame it and display it and promote it
As it quietly exists through the day.
We humans sometimes get to think everything happens because of us
But these trees and grasses and hills arrange themselves
And create great beauty effortlessly
Simply in the process of their everyday existence.
So I did a painting that can never match the original
So that I may remember my place.
Read the rest of the poetry from my annual poetry reading and art show at Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, in 2009 entitled Change of Season.
Paths I Have Walked, collected poems.
About Art of the Watershed and the Collected Poems
A series of seasonal images of the Lower Chartiers Watershed
“I have travelled a good deal in Concord,” said Henry David Thoreau in Walden, his paradox of exploring a small town and its surroundings teaching him as much about human life and the interactions of nature as if he had traveled rare and exotic places about the globe.
I’d love to paint faraway exotic places, but in the interests of time I stay close to home for my hiking, bicycling, canoeing, walking and painting excursions, that being the valley where the Lower Chartiers Creek flows.
I’ve seen some exquisite sights on my adventures, and committed them to various media. The most moving are the ones I’ve chosen to paint large and in detail so that I might convey at least a portion of the grandeur that moved me beyond awe to action, sharing the places right around us though most people would never see them. Thus was born the series offering an image indicative of the watershed in each season.
Visit my website to see the full set of paintings included in the “Art of the Watershed” series.
And visit my poetry page to see more about my poetry and other writing.
Autumn in the Valley availability
You can find a full-size giclee plus various sizes of digital prints, framed and unframed in my Etsy shop.
Poetry and Art: Ripened Color
Evening on the Meadow, pastel, 23″ x 15″, 2009 © B.E. Kazmarski
Celebrating the first day of autumn, no recording this time, just art and words expressing the simply beauty of a field of ripe grasses, and the surprise through years of painting to find colors from all the seasons in the highlights and shadows of the grasses.
The painting above is of Fern Hollow Nature Center near Sewickley, PA of the meadow habitat from their hilltop acreage. The Adirondack chair really was there from someone sitting to watch birds and butterflies over the meadow. A friend in another organization had taken the photo and gave it to to use for design in a newsletter, but as soon as I looked at it I thought, “That would make a great painting!” I painted it in pastel as a donation to the Allegheny Land Trust’s annual Bounty in the Barn benefit in 2009.
High Noon, pastel, 7″ x 15″, 1998 © B.E. Kazmarski
The painting at left is, of all things, the view from the edge of a parking lot, but it was so lovely, the grasses spilling over the edge in front of the pine trees so dark in shadow at noon, and a lovely September sky.
Ripened Color
June 12, 2000
The field of grass
In September has reached its full maturity;
As the wrinkles of a face
Share the joys and sorrows of a life’s journey,
The field in the shadows and highlights of its grasses
Holds the colors of all the seasons.
The amber of ripe stems
Is toned with the warm, rich lilac
Of a winter sunset.
Shadows hold the deep bright blue
Of the early summer sky
Blended down to sienna
Borrowed from leaves in a winter pond.
In the highlights, the bright delicate green
Of new leaves on willows
Mixes with the yellow
Of silver maple leaves in autumn.
poem and art © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
See more of my landscape paintings in Fine Art.
Read more of my poetry in Creative and Professional Writing.
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 my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
Sketch: West Main Street, August Afternoon
West Main Street, August Afternoon, pastel, 7″ x 9″ © B.E. Kazmarski
I started a little plein air sketch on West Main Street in Carnegie this afternoon but had to get back home before I did much before blocking it in. I finished it from photos this evening.
Misty Summer Sunrise, photo and paintings
Misty Summer Sunrise
This was the view this morning; as the sun rose the mist rose with it. In mid-August, a few surprising cool nights.
This reminds me of two little sketches I’ve done through the years of similar misty summer mornings, below, when the trees were younger. In the photo above you can see the spruce at right, in the first sketch below it is one of a pair, on the left. In the bottom one, the mulberry in the center and the hemlock on the left are nowhere near as big as they are now. Only the mulberry is in my yard, but I still think I’ll give it a trim.
Fog, pastel, 6″ x 4″, 2000 © B.E. Kazmarski
Dawn, pastel, 4″ x 7″ 2000 © B.E. Kazmarski
House By Tracks
I passed this scene just this morning on my way down Main Street for a number of errands; a day very much like the one in the painting, and, as before, I took several photos of the scene trying to catch the glare of the sun, the feeling of the hot, dry silence of a late summer afternoon, the house sheltered from the tracks and from the sun by trees, its little back porch inviting. As usual, I was disappointed that the photo didn’t seem to convey the feeling I wanted no matter what I did with it—and I modified it every way I could think, enhancing the colors and desaturaing them, making it black and white, sepia, over exposing the highlights, but to no avail. I walked along the tracks in another part of town on my way back and think I captured the hot desolate walking of railroad tracks there, which I will post a little later.
So I looked up this painting I’d done almost ten years ago when, in another attempt, I was unhappy with the outcome of my photos, then on film, and decided to paint the scene to see if I could get it that way. Also, our annual art exhibit “Carnegie Painted” was coming up and I was looking for subjects. This painting did well for both efforts. The scene doesn’t look too different now than it did then, or actually many decades ago when I remember walking by here, something I really didn’t think about until just now.
I still have this painting, and because I pulled it out and dusted it off to look at it for this, I also posted it in my shop on Etsy and in my Marketplace. It’s never gotten much attention from people, it’s not classically “pretty” and I understand that, but it has a lot of character, and it’s always brought back that hot Sunday morning on Main Street for me.
Framed view.
About the painting
Nothing captures the heat of a summer day for me more than a view of railroad tracks, gravel blazing in the relentless August sun, the empty tracks themselves seeming to magnify the silence of a summer afternoon. Add to that the lush trees with deep, welcoming shadows and a faded blue sky and that’s summer for me, possibly because I often used railroad tracks as a shortcut when walking around in summer.
I also wanted to capture the brilliant highlights on the greenery, and the greenery itself aside from the trees, the scrubby, tough wildflowers that grow in the gravel along the railroad tracks.
I will really digress here and mention that I always associate it with the short story from Stephen King’s anthology Different Seasons entitled “The Body”, which became the movie Stand By Me. I was past my childhood days of following railroad tracks to the next town, but when I read that story something clicked for me—as a writer. As I read I could feel the sun beat down on my head, hear the insects, see the tracks stretch out before me in the quivering mirages of summer heat as if I was walking those tracks again and I decided I wanted to do that too, to take people to the place I was in my imagination by writing about it. I had always dismissed the things I’d taken in through my senses as my own experience and which others wouldn’t be interested in. I realized that the descriptive terms that built an image of physical place for the reader are built on what we take in through our senses.
I thought about that today as I walked along the tracks in the sun in 94-degree heat, much hotter on the creosote-soaked ties and metal rails, the brush and wildflowers growing tall around me, the tracks in a flat valley though just a short distance, a shortcut from one part of town to another. But I took in every detail, color, scent, sound—that mid-day quiet with the occasional insect or one bird, then silence—my thoughts, some day this will all appear somewhere in something I write.
Frame and mat.
I’ve always been fascinated by houses that were right next to railroad tracks as well, wondering how people managed to live there in the days when trains screamed by and emitted tons of toxic pollution. It all tells a story of a time gone by extending into today. While this house reminds me of many I’ve seen along other railroad tracks, this house is right off of Main Street in Carnegie and is still occupied. I took a few hours on a Sunday afternoon in 2002 to paint it for our annual art exhibit, Carnegie Painted.
This original pastel is painted on Wallis Sanded pastel paper, image size 9″ x 12″. I framed it in a custom moulding pine frame painted dark green with edges trimmed to natural wood, a 2-1/4″ acid-free natural white top mat and a 1/4″ acid-free forest green bottom mat. Finished framed size is 14″ x 17″. It’s in my shop on Etsy, so click on over and take a look.
Memorial Day Parade, a pencil sketch
Memorial Day Parade, pencil, 2008 © B.E. Kazmarski
The good old traditional parade on the good old traditional Main Street, in my home town of Carnegie, PA. I am not a big fan of parades but my mother loved them, so every year until the year before she died I set us up on Main Street regardless of the weather and we cheered along the high school marching bands and local dignitaries and fire companies and reenactors marching in the parade. Going out for an ice cream sundae afterward capped it off.
Each year our community held an art exhibit called “Carnegie Painted” for 2-D art depicting images of Carnegie; this was one of my entries in 2008, sketched from photos I had taken of the parade. Instead of color I decided to render it in pencil, in a style reminiscent of World War II cartoons. Pencil is so expressive, and it really reduces lines down to just what they need to be to get the point across, and this illustration style is almost impressionistic in its quality of line and level of detail.
Also, my father was a veteran of WWII, and my mother graduated high school and began her life during the war years—she considered it “her time”. I always felt as if I’d lived then with all the stories and memories. As my mother was growing older and finding and reading through my father’s service papers I actually came to feel closer to that time. This drawing in this style was a memory of that parade, of my mother, my father and a lot of other things combined. It all connects to a story I’m writing.
I sold the original, but have prints and notecards of it in various sizes. Visit my website to read about this and other pieces in my “My Home Town” series.
Evening Lights: Painting
Evening Lights, acrylic on canvas © B.E. Kazmarski
As I walked home from an errand this evening, this is what it looked like.
I didn’t paint this today or tonight but on a similar in April 2006; the warm temperatures make it feel as if it’s a month later than it is. But in that year for some reason the perfect turquoise twilight of spring and the clear fresh air was suddenly inspiring to me to paint the tiny lights reflected on Chartiers Creek, the wash of streetlights on the fronts of buildings and deep shadows behind and between, and that big sky above it all.
I also decided to paint all this in paints, not pastels or watercolors or anything else I was accustomed to using. I had been studying painting techniques and wanted that tactile, dimensional quality of paint, the wet that dried, applying daubs of pure color in one place and then letting two or more colors mix on my brush in another place.
Beginning with three 8″ x 10″ stretched canvases, brushes and paints I’d gotten for nothing from a friend whose painter aunt had passed away, I thought this was the best way to capture the deep colors of the night scenes.
The Winter Trail
Winter Trail, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
Despite today’s lovely snowfall, I need to catch up on not only photos but sketches as well. Last Sunday was a perfect sunny winter day, even somewhat warm by winter standards, warm enough that I would take my bike to the trail (I try not to ride below 45 degrees because of windburn), though my ultimate goal was the peace and relaxation of sketching something.
Reference Photo
I know the trail pretty well, where the shadows fall while the sun is still at its winter angle and where the trail itself stays icy until well into May. The Panhandle Trail was once a railroad line and has some deep cuts through limestone walls where it’s actually cool even on a hot summer day.
Of course, I thought I’d get a few sketches done, but only stopped at one area about two miles from the Walker’s Mill trailhead, at the bend where you can look across a little valley, Robinson Run and a flood plain to see one of the oldest cabins in the region, the Ewing-Walker-Glass Cabin, “rebuilt” in about 1750.
I’ll paint that someday, but I did the sketch above, “Winter Trail”, 9 x 12 in pastel—who ever said winter was colorless?—and the 5 x 7 pencil sketch below. Looks like I forgot to sign it…
Winter Trail Sketch, pencil © B.E. Kazmarski
January Light
Namir in January morning sun.
I also posted this on The Creative Cat today; it’s one I’d wanted to share with both audiences.
January light is so beautiful, the sun still at a low angle streaming into windows and doors, the days often overcast and the brilliant warm yellow sunlight a respite.
I was browsing my library of feline photos and saw this one of Namir from 2007, who passed about the time I began blogging, and thought I’d share it. He has his toys there, the sisal mouse and a milk bottle ring, but as animals, and humans, do when they meet up with the relaxing effect of warm winter sun, a contemplative stillness falls, and perhaps a nap ensues.
Namir was so graceful and dignified and obviously knew how to strike a pose, even though he was a total goof and in another moment could be on his back with his legs impossibly twisted, or toss that mouse up in the air and do a back flip right after it. I love his pose, and also the little touches of home, my home, the canning jars, honey jar, oatmeal container; perhaps I only love it so much because it was one of those complete moments that we all experience now and then, where every familiar thing is in its place and all is warm and safe and filled with love.
I took a series of photos of Namir in the sun in the kitchen that January, enjoying them as photos and intending to do a few paintings, and indeed I did do a watercolor of one of Namir’s poses from another morning.
Darling Clementine, watercolor © B.E. Kazmarski
I chose this one because I also liked Namir’s intent posture, ears forward, whiskers drawn back, his tail curled into the nearly perfect circle that was his trademark tail action.
This photo had much more light in it as it washed the cabinet, but I also had the wooden clementines box filled with things that needed to go into the basement, the canning jars and the cylindrical cardboard containers with their brightly-colored labels. Another example of that homey feel, my kitchen, my stuff, my habits, my cat, my home. Yet others enjoy it too. Sometimes we are not too different from one another.
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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used in any way without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
At Carnegie Antiques
Vintage Glass, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
I spent the afternoon minding the shop at Carnegie Antiques today and decided to paint a little sketch of a table of glassware that has recently arrived at the shop.
Judi, the shop owner, had organized this table of decorative glassware last week; when I was in I was enchanted by all the colors and shapes and patterns. Remembering it, I decided the next time I was in I would paint that table of glass.
Unlike other subjects, glass is translucent, both having a shape and allowing other shapes to be seen through it. It has a color but other colors can be seen through it as well, modified by the color of the glass. And instead of casting a deep shadow, it casts a pool of colored light on a table top.
Detail of painting.
This painting is about 10″ x 12″ in chalk pastel on Wallis sanded pastel paper; you can see the color of the paper in the lower left corner and here and there throughout the painting. I painted it in about 90 minutes, then touched up a few things when I got home with pastel colors I didn’t have in my little traveling box. There are four different shades of blue here, two shades of green and three of the cranberry glass. My traveling box is a cheap set of mostly primaries and secondaries, perhaps an extra shade of some of the like red-orange or apple green, plus black, white and mid-gray. I can capture quite a bit with those pastels by blending in place, but not always the nuances of glass.
I see things I’d like to work on—the background for one, which I like rough and sketchy but I want a little more color in it and can’t decide which. I began with pale yellow, then added blue, then green then pale violet. On the table I may mess around with the glass a little more to define the pieces, but mostly the doily under the blue bowl in the center does not look like a doily. It will come to me.
Detail of painting.
But there is glass from nearly every era there, opalescent milk glass, Depression glass, colored, etched, painted, plus napkins and napkin rings over on the right and two hobnail lamps with cranberry glass, one a nice respectable table lamp and the other a naked lady with a lampshade on her head. Those Victorians knew how to entertain themselves.
When it’s done, I think I’ll buy one of Judi’s highly decorative vintage gold frames and use that to frame it.
Though the shop sells vintage items from the mid-19th century to mid-20th century, I have a room with my artwork in the building. It helps to be friends with the owner, and I’m grateful to have this display space and also enjoy my time there where I am totally unplugged—no cell phone, no computer or wireless, just a radio or a recorded book if I care to bring one. It’s a real break from the usual day. I put out the “open” flag and people stop in to browse, what fun.
Detail of painting.
I usually do a little rearranging and cleaning in my little room, sometimes a lot, but when I don’t have a lot to do I bring a project with me that, again, can be done while unplugged, like writing, which I will often do in pen on a good old-fashioned tablet, or a crochet project, and a take a lunch I can heat up. After the busy-ness of working at home it’s nice to get a quiet spot now and then.
Tributary
Unnamed Tributary, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
On a quiet sunny winter afternoon this little unnamed tributary surely had a lot to say, babbling along over rocks and shelves of slate and limestone on its way to Scrubgrass Creek a distance away. I see a few things I’d still like to do with it but I’m pretty pleased. The light changes quickly at this time of year, and I had to work quickly.
Off in the woods today, I stood in the snow and painted a little pastel sketch as well as took photos of the snowy hollow at Kane’s Woods in Scott Township, PA. I’ve been waiting for a significant snowfall, enough to give good even cover to most of the leaf litter. Much of this conservation area faces north and doesn’t catch significant sunlight, especially in the winter when the sun’s angle is low, but this little hollow and the hill next to it face south. Once the sun gets into the hollow it just fills it up, especially when snow can reflect it in all directions.
The Kane Woods Conservation Area is a place I’ve known since I was a child, before it was conserved and trails were established, but my lifetime of visiting and that of others is what inspired Scott Conservancy to consider the site worth working for.
There's me, feeling a little silly.
I’ll be featured in one of the newsletters I design, this for Allegheny Land Trust, in a feature called “GreenTalk” to say a little bit about what conserving green space means to me. I needed a photo to go along with my Q&A, and since I’m the photographer I have very few of me. I asked a friend to take a few with my camera.
Along with the benefits of preserving water quality and air quality, protecting steep slopes from erosion and landslides and managing stormwater naturally, greenspace at the same time provides natural recreation areas that require little maintenance compared to a playground or formal park with accommodations. And for me, it provides a subject for my creative efforts, my paintings, photos, poems, and just a place to rest my eyes and ears from the onslaught of digital and social information and just listen to the breeze and the birds and watch the sunlight play across the snow.
Sketch: Frosty Morning, Just Before Sunrise
Frosty Morning, Just Before Dawn, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
I’ve always liked this view out my back window, and this morning’s hazy frosty look with the valley in shadow but the bright sky was very inspiring. I decided to finally do this sketch that I’ve been visualizing for years.
The colors in this aren’t entirely accurate plus certain parts of it smeared when I put in into my scanner, so I may try photographing it tomorrow and replacing this image if the colors are more accurate. I began it first thing then put it aside as the light changed, later working from the photo I’d taken and just from my visualization. It’s 10″ tall x 18″ wide.
Not just the colors of a snowy, frigid morning, but the steam rising from all the chimneys were part of the inspiration as well, I’m not sure why, but when everyone’s furnace turned on at the same time is when I knew I had to paint this.
The four houses across from me I’ve sketched a number of times before, but in this case I’ve also included what is Main Street in Carnegie off to the left, the little collection of square-cornered things are the buildings there with steam rising just as well.
The one element I did leave out was the trees in my back yard which were just featured in a dawn photo the other day. They were just too chaotic and detailed, and when I visualized the scene I realized my visualization had left them out. There is plenty of interest here without them. You can also see a portion of this scene in a frosty photo from last year before the heavy snowfall and ice knocked down a number of trees on the left.
This painting is done in hues of only four colors, a Prussian blue which is a cool blue tending toward slate blue, haze blue that is a warmer color with a red tint and has elements of violet, and one shade each of yellow and pink.
This was one of those times when the photograph just wasn’t going to work.
Hemlocks, Snowy Morning
Hemlocks, Snowy Morning, 7" x 10", pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
The view out my side window of my neighbor’s hemlock trees with the hills far beyond and the morning sky with clouds and sun and snow. In this sketch, I not only wanted to capture the sun streaming through the hemlock and the cool colors of a snowy morning, I also wanted to capture the nature of the hemlocks, their shape and growth habit, the straight trunks with the branches that tend to break easily, the bare little twigs inside the tree, and the tufts of needles at the ends of the branches. At one time there had been another hemlock that completely blocked the view, and the sun, hence the bare insides of these trees. I hate to see a tree go down but when that one was lost in a storm it literally opened up a new view for me, and much more sunlight.
Where this site has featured a daily photo, I’ve decided to also use it for my occasional sketches. At one time I always carried some art materials with me as well as my camera. I fell away from the sketches, mostly landscapes and Main Street and still lifes around the house, as life grew a little too busy for a while to take the 15 to 30 minutes needed for a little inspiration. As when I visited the Panhandle Trail on Christmas day, I hope to post more sketches in addition to the photographs from each day.
I did not photograph this scene, only drew it as I stood at the window, so you have no photo to compare.
I also post daily sketches of my cats on The Creative Cat as well as daily photos, which many people follow already; today Mr. Sunshine had something to say about this sketch in particular.
Winter Afternoon on the Trail
Trail Sketch, pastel, © B.E. Kazmarski
I took a walk on the Panhandle Trail on Christmas day, a lovely sunny day and even fairly warm, no snow, but no rain either. Of course, there were many photo opportunities and one of my pleasures of being on the trail is also doing a sketch or two. Above is my sketch from Christmas day, just a nice spot on the trail, but nothing notable. I like to show the edges of a sketch, not sure why.
I hear about winter being “gray” or “brown” and somehow these colors are unpleasant and there are no others in the scene. Anyone who doesn’t see the the colors of a winter day just needs to stand still and let them happen. Below is the photo I took of the same scene, though it was near the time I was done and the light had changed somewhat. Still, there are blues and purples and reds and yellows to be found in highlights and shadows, and the light itself is always dramatic.
Trail Image
