Use Your Credit Card Directly on Etsy

After Dinner Nap, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

As an artist it’s my business to follow my muse and create what life brings to me. Click the image above to find out why Stanley is the face of  Portraits of Animals, and why this painting was important to my career as an animal artist.

As a self-employed small business owner it is my business to give you as many options and opportunities as possible to find what I create and make a purchase once you’ve decided you want something I’ve created.

Etsy, the online handmade marketplace, has made this decidedly easier for many of us so that we can spend more time doing what we do best, making stuff with their attractive interface and easy setup of accounts, shops and product displays.

Now they’ve added a new feature which not only makes transactions easier for us, but it may make many customers happy as well—you can now purchase with a credit card directly through Etsy, no PayPal involved, no redirect to your PayPal account or extra steps, so it’s quicker for you as well.

For many years I accepted credit card transactions directly through my own bank, so any opportunities for sale were like any other online store. But even with a moderate level of sales, the costs and fees increased to the point where it often cost more to maintain the account in certain months than I received in sales so when I moved my business account and discovered it would cost even more through the new portal, I sent back my leased equipment and closed the account.

That left me with PayPal for credit card transactions. I had never cared for PayPal, but discovered by that time, 2007, it was quite different from the online portal I’d tried to use in 1999. And looking at its security record I’ve found that PayPal has never had a security breach and has a very clean record for customer service. It was also basically free with no monthly fees or membership fees or equipment leasing of any sort, just sitting there waiting for me until I had a sale. Selling fees were reasonable. And more recently Quicken and QuickBooks have added PayPal as one of the accounts you can manage with the program. So I’ve fully embraced PayPal and am happy with their service.

But I understand those customers who don’t like the intrusiveness of PayPal, and often the confusing complications—you really can pay with PayPal even if you don’t have an account, but I’m often walking people through that process if they don’t because PayPal doesn’t make it easy to follow that method for their own business reasons, which irks me because in this case, I’m the customer.

I am currently putting together a new gallery for Etsy, and have been preparing new artwork to begin posting in April, so this is right in time for a clearance, and the arrival of new things. March is my anniversary month on Etsy, and once an individual item has been on Etsy for one year I either remove it or reduce the price, so prices are reduced on any of the things you first saw posted last year.

In addition, from now through April 30, I have an extra 10% discount if you use your credit card directly through the Etsy direct checkout: use code ETSYCREDIT10. Click the link below to begin browsing, and be sure to check back now and then for new items!

Welcome to my Etsy shop!

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And be sure to visit my Etsy shop to see what’s currently available.

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 purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.

Donated Art, and an Event

Christmas Day on the Trail, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

I took a walk on the Panhandle Trail on Christmas Day 2011, 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 that Christmas Day, just a nice spot on the trail where the sun angled across the hills, touching certain trees and not others, throwing sunny splashes across the limestone chip surface. I remember the sycamores were very, very white, even in the shadows, and the oak trees on the hill a warm bright bronze in the sunlight.

I most often bicycle Panhandle, and though I am also on other trails this is the most familiar to me for how often I am on it. I always have my camera equipment and art materials; sometimes I am less about bicycling for the day than I am about painting and have easels and drawing boards and then some, pulling my bike along like a two-wheeled pack horse. But whether I am set up for a day of en plein air (“in the open air”) painting right there on the trail or just a quick sketch before I pedal on, I’m glad the trails are there for me.

Small sketches, affordable art and donations

I have a house full of small sketches I’ve done of my cats, my garden, my neighborhood and especially local trails and conservation areas. Usually pastel but sometimes pencil or charcoal or pen and ink, I’ve organized the originals into exhibits such as Winter White and printed them as notecards like My Home Town, Feline Sketches and Eye on the Sparrow.

I try to frame the originals as soon as possible, cutting my own mats and framing them with repurposed frames which people have given me or I’ve found at thrift shops and yard sales and cleaned up and refinished. They always come together in a nice, neat and unique piece of artwork. Because they are small and quick and I recycle materials, I also keep their prices affordable for someone who wants a piece of original artwork. I sell them myself and in other places—for instance, a number of these are now at Distinctively Different Decor & More and in my Etsy shop—but I also donate a certain number of these auctions to benefit animal shelters and other organizations; I’m gratified to find that bidding is often higher than what I would charge, so I’ve been able to benefit an organization I support with something I’ve created.

The Montour Trail Council is hosting the Pittsburgh Cycling Expo on Sunday, March 25 to benefit the Montour Trail. I’ve donated prints for their events in the past, and this time I offered a selection of recent trail sketches I’ve done on the Panhandle Trail and they chose the sketch above, “Christmas Day on the Trail”. I originally wrote about it on Today the day after I visited the trail, and you’ll see I added to it after I finished it—in order to make it fit the frame that matched it perfectly out of my stock of extras! But I so appreciate the presence of these trails which I use as often as possible for exercise, for art, for inspiration that I’m glad I can offer this for their benefit.

I’m also donating a framed photo, below, which is not from the trail, but it includes a bicycle, “Commuter”, taken in Pittsburgh’s Strip District; I’ve always liked this photo and it’s sold well at outdoor events, so I hope this earns bids for them as well.

Visit the website to read about the event which is sponsored by AeroTech Designs, a local clothing manufacturer in Coraopolis, PA that makes cycling clothing. In a roundabout way, I’m glad to be supporting a local business and employer as well.

Commuter, photo © B.E. Kazmarski

Another Place for My Art: Distinctively Different Decor…

Sophie Keeps an Eye on Things, photo © B.E. Kazmarski

Interior designer—and fellow cat rescuer—Bonita Farinelli and I met yesterday to consign a number of pieces of my artwork and prints to her Boutique at Distinctively Different Decor & More in Carnegie.

Borzois, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

And you can have the chance to see it at her March Open House on Sunday, March 25, 2012.

Biding Time, print © B.E. Kazmarski

I’m so glad when my artwork can be out in the public, and when I’m not there with it I especially appreciate when it’s in the hands of a person who understands and respects it. Bonita is a fellow business owner in Carnegie and has converted a solid but sad unused building into a lovely place to look at, and plied her many skills and inspirations with fabrics, patterns and colors into works from handmade pillows to entire houses of unique colors, furniture and draperies.

Taking Flight, print © B.E. Kazmarski

I learned she was a cat lover when in her display for an event at Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall last year she included a pair of breathtaking modern-styled feline-themed lamps. At that event and subsequent events and mixers we began trading cat stories and creative ideas and knew a partnership would work.

Are You Looking at Me? © B.E. Kazmarski

Got art? How much do you want? You have the space, I can fill it up with many different styles and sizes and subjects from abstract black and white photography to highly detailed realistic paintings to whimsical layered and textured “white collages”.

Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, white collage © B.E. Kazmarski

I have a number of cat and dog works there as well as landscapes and photography, a mix of originals and prints, small and large, all framed and ready to hang.

Sophie and Ellie Being Very Good, print © B.E. Kazmarski

I hope to see you there at some point on Saturday! And soon I will be writing about Bonita’s animal-inspired creations as well!

Burnished Waves, pastel © B. E. Kazmarski

Bonita also has need of a framer so we’ll be working together on a number of things.

Sunset on the Bay, watercolor © B. E. Kazmarski

See you there!

St. Patrick’s Day Special on Things That Are Green

God, I'm Cute greeting card sets.

I may not be Irish, but while everyone knows my first name is “Bernadette”, you probably don’t know my middle name is “Eileen”. Following a name like “Bernadette Eileen” I’m sure a Polish surname like “Kazmarski” is the last thing you expect—perhaps something like O’Toole or McShane (two Irish families I grew up with). So for St. Patrick’s Day a friend has pronounced I am honorarily “Bernadette Eileen O’Kazmarski”. Goes along with my bright henna-red hair, yes? Let the celebration begin!

I love totally random sales, and looking at the gallery of things that are tagged as “green” in my Etsy shop it certainly looks that way—original artwork, greeting cards, gift bags—and not just feline-themed things but also wildlife and nature and flowers!

One Pepper, pastel © B E. Kazmarski

Just for St. Patrick’s Day I’ve got 10% off your entire order if you buy one of the things tagged with green in this gallery in my Etsy shop. Just use the code STPATRICKGREEN10 when you place your order.

Winter Window, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

And as I mentioned, it’s not just 10% off your green item, it’s 10% OFF YOUR ENTIRE ORDER if you purchase one of the items in the green gallery.

Set of three cotton washcloths, designed and crocheted by me (and supervised by guess who).

Happy shopping! And Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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And be sure to visit my Etsy shop to see what’s currently available.

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 purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.

The Mourning Doves Are Biding Their Time

Biding Time, pencil and watercolor © B. E. Kazmarski

The birds are returning, and this sunny morning when I filled the feeders I heard quite the chorus of mourning doves. They’ve always inhabited my trees, and now while they are still bare I can see birds clustered in each of them—especially as they watch me with the seed headed for each feeder.

The mourning doves tend to settle in one place for a while, commune with each other, sing for a while, then sit quietly as they consider moving off to do something else.

These doves are waiting in the maple tree outside my bedroom window, a scene I often see and always enjoy.

The branches of the ancient maple tree vary in texture and even color, the larger branches and trunk carrying old gnarled scars from years of storms; this tree has been my guardian since I moved into this house and is very, very old. The details of the branches and twigs were so inspiring to me and I visualized a large, detailed pencil drawing, even imagining my pencil drawing the darker edges, blending the smooth areas and sketching detail in the rough areas to create the shadows.

Still, it was the doves who led me to the beauty of the scene and it was only a matter of time and lots of reference photos before I decided exactly which one I wanted to draw.

The scene I finally chose to draw was a bright overcast day when a snowfall had melted from the branches, leaving them a little wet and more colorful than usual with the little bits of moss that collect on the undersides, and the shadows are muted and soft.

Detail of dove with branches.

I chose to create this drawing in pencil for the simple clarity of line and the delicacy of shadow. Pencil was my first medium and one I return to regularly with a comforting familiarity, losing myself in the variety of lines and textures a simple graphite pencil can achieve, and so it was with this drawing.

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. Loving the pencil, I still wanted to give the birds and branches dimension against the flat white background. Well I remember my hesitance with the first washes of color, holding the brush, filled with paint, away from the sketch, afraid to begin for fear either my idea of adding color wouldn’t be successful or I would simply screw up this pencil drawing I’d spent three weeks drawing. Eventually, I got over it, and it worked out just as I had visualized.

Detail of the other dove.

I sold the original to a loving home, but have a quality giclee matted and framed.

Frame and mat on giclee print.

The signed giclee print is 18″ wide x 12″ high, matted with a 4″ tan acid-free marble mat 1″ matte black wood frame, framed size 18″ x 24″. The backing is acid-free foam core and the glass is premium clear glass.

You can find this print in my Etsy shop.

Solstice

Solstice, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

The above painting is indeed from the Winter Solstice about a decade ago. As the sun began to set on a zero-degree day with a foot or more of snow the light was so beautiful that I took off in my car with my camera and art supplies. At the top of the hill the gentle pink and coral tones of the sunset melded with the blue of dusk on the field of unbroken snow at the old Christmas tree farm, one of my favorite spots.

It was too cold to draw outside since I can’t wear gloves and would soon be dropping my pastels in the snow, so I positioned my car on a convenient side road and sketched this in my front seat. As it does sometimes, the sun seemed to hang in the trees just before it disappeared: solstice, “sun-stand-still”. It’s just a little thing, 6″ x 6″, one of my favorites, especially now that the place is gone to development. It became the inspiration for an exhibit I hosted in 2004, “Winter White”.

Winter

I love winter, and I don’t care who thinks I’m crazy.

I love the light, so much more of it with the leaves down from the trees and with the sun’s angle so much lower, more of it in the house and in the woods.

I love the colors, from the subtle pastels of a snowy morning to the bold jewel tones and earth tones of brambles, branches, stems and tree trunks and leaves left behind in contrast to the snow on a bright afternoon.

And I love the minimal, stark beauty of branches etched against snow and sky during a snowfall. I got out and play in it, and paint and photograph.

Winter White

Panhandle Outbound, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Several years ago I collected all my winter sketches and hosted an exhibit entitled “Winter White”, and my guests and I enjoyed the art so much that I set it up on my website, each painting with the information about where it came from.

These are all small sketches, none larger than 12″ x 12″, in pastel, watercolor, pencil and pen and ink nearly all done en plein air, sometimes on the trails, sometimes in my backyard, often standing on my deck or sitting in the front seat of the car when the temperature was near zero.

In many cases they are my experiments with materials and styles, preparing my own drawing surfaces and using papers I’d never used before, breaking my own boundaries of studio work to refresh my palette and visualization.

I did my best to capture the essence of winter, and you’ll even see a few winter cats in here too.

I was greatly inspired by the book for an exhibit organized and shown in New York and San Francisco in 1999 entitled “Impressionists in Winter: Effets de Neige”. You can read about it on Artnet.com, or check your local library for the book from the exhibit.

In the meantime, enjoy my views of winter! Visit Winter White.

Holiday Cards: Winter Beauty, My Favorite Season for Painting

Solstice, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Winter is my favorite season for painting. These paintings were inspired by winter in pastel, watercolor and pen and ink from the trails to my backyard, completed en plein air and indoors—often standing on my deck or sitting in the front seat of the car—illuminated by the stark light of winter. Many of them were just small sketches while others were large, detailed studio paintings in an attempt to capture the essence of a winter scene.

Inside, all cards say, “Wishing you warm thoughts and happy memories in this holiday season, and an astonishingly beautiful new year to come.” With a minimum order of four dozen they can also be customized with your message or logo (please convo on Etsy).

These 5″ x 7″ cards are printed on 14 pt. gloss card stock and include a matching envelope, 1 each of the eight designs shown, packed in a clear-top white cardboard greeting card box.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Dusk in the Woods, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Dusk in the Woods
Pastel • 2006
The last moment of true daylight when the eye can still perceive color; “that blue time”, lasting only moments, but full of the magic of the reality of day and the spirits of night.
A spot near Robinson Run in Collier Township, PA

 

After the Snow Squall, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

After the Snow Squall
Pastel • 2003
A fresh snowfall, just as the clouds part and the sun appears.

 

Morning Snow 1, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Morning Snow I
Pastel • 1998
We only get heavy snows every few winters here in Western Pennsylvania, so being able to revel in the sparkling beauty of a winter morning after a heavy snowfall provided much inspiration. This scene and Morning Snow II are actually in my suburban backyard. I was fascinated at the multitude of colors in the early morning sunlight as it reflected on the snow, and in the colors in the shadows.

 

Morning Snow 2, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Morning Snow II
Pastel • 1998
We only get heavy snows every few winters here in Western Pennsylvania, so being able to revel in the sparkling beauty of a winter morning after a heavy snowfall provided much inspiration. This scene and Morning SnowII are actually in my suburban backyard. I was fascinated at the multitude of colors in the early morning sunlight as it reflected on the snow, and in the colors in the shadows.

Sticks and Slopes, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Sticks and Slopes
Ink and Watercolor • 2006
One of our many hillsides reduced to lines and shadows by the afternoon sun.

Tracks in the Snow, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Tracks in the Snow
Pastel • 2004
Someone sheltered under my spruce in the storm.

Solstice, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Solstice
Pastel • 2003
The moment when the sun stands still, as it seemed to at this frigid, snow-covered winter dusk,
spruces standing dignified sentinel to the moment of transition. (This is another of those beautiful places that isn’t there anymore.)

Winter, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Winter
Pastel • 1996
A cold and snowy winter sunset on a friend’s farm.

Autumn in the Valley

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.

About Art of the Watershed

A series of seasonal images of the Lower Chartiers Watershed

Dusk in the Woods, pastel © B.E.Kazmarski

“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.

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.

The Deserted Cottages, Recalling a Long-ago Image

Deserted Cottages, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Original pastel painting, 17″ x 8.5″, 1999

Anything can become a learning opportunity and an inspiration, even a cheap cardboard painting stapled into a rickety wood frame. It worked for me.

I painted “Deserted Cottages” en plein air at a deserted campground in North East along Lake Erie. It was just a quick thing at the end of the day because the sun was going down and the light was changing fast, but I’d been painting all day and I was well warmed up. I quickly blocked in the buildings with just a few simple shapes and colors and their traceries of shadows, then the trees and grass, trying to catch the fluttering effect of the leaves in the wind allowing chunks of sky to show through, the tree trunks simplified and in high light-dark contrast, the blank expression of the boarded windows. I was pleased with the outcome, yet something was strangely familiar.

J.E. Warfield Painting

Six years later I put my mother’s house up for sale as she had moved to personal care, and took down her collection of cardboard art in plastic frames that I’d studied in depth growing up. It may not have been expensive, but there was a lot of it, in every room, including the basement. I particularly remembered the one long narrow painting with the signature J.E. Warfield because I liked the way the trees were leafy, not solid, and opened to the sky, the shadows traced across the ground and the buildings were very simple; after studying it as a child I felt that I could do that. Again, something was familiar.

I looked at “Deserted Cottages”, and looked at my cardboard Warfield. The tree trunks, the leaves, the simple buildings, the shadows—there it was! I could clearly see what I’d been aiming for as I’d painted six years before—this painting I’d been studying all my life practically.

Detail of the houses in the Warfield painting.

Detail of houses in my painting.

So it was a cheap cardboard painting stapled into a rickety wood frame—never underestimate the power of any image to inspire and teach! And I haven’t found out a darned thing about J.E. Warfield, but apparently this painting was a popular one judging by all the ones I’ve seen being sold as “vintage”.

Nothing is ever wasted for a creative person. I’ve learned to never dismiss something that impresses me for some reason, be it the cover of a bodice-ripper romance or a velvet painting or a doodle on a notebook, it goes “in there” somewhere and comes out somewhere else as a way I learned to work with color or shape or medium or just something that caught my eye and would catch others’ as well.

Detail of Warfield trees.

Detail of my trees.

The art is 17″ x 8.5″, triple-matted with a quarter-inch deep slate blue, eighth-inch deep rust, and 2-5/8″ natural white textured parchment finish top mat, weathered walnut frame with blue wash, and it’s hanging right here above my desk as well as available in my Etsy shop.

Deserted Cottages, framed (sorry for the poor photo, it was just impossible).

My Autumn Gallery

Birches 2: Radiance, ink and watercolor, 2002, © B. E. Kazmarski

As the Harvest Moon has passed and the Autumnal Equinox approaches, I’m sensing signs of autumn everywhere, in the angle and color of sunlight, leaves beginning to change from green to their autumn garb, geese flying south and my bird feeders mobbed by birds on some day, and cooler days and nights.

Just as I have galleries of summer and winter artwork, so do I have a gallery of autumn artwork; I’ll feature just a few here in this post, but you can read about others in my Etsy gallery. As much of autumn artwork has to do with trees doing their autumn thing, and Western Pennsylvania is largely tree covered, I’ve had a lot of material to work with through the years. Some are painted en plein air, but some are studio pieces, like the birch trees above.

Birches 1 and 2

Birches 1: Autumn Showers, oil pastel, 1999 © B.E. Kazmarski

From the time I met the paper birch in our front yard I have always been attracted to the delicately detailed white bark of birch trees which seemed to emit its own faint light in any season. Here, in the darkness of the woods, the grouping of white trunks looks like a crowd clustered for discussion, decorated by a maple branch in Birches 1: Autumn Showers.

The technique was an experiment borne of an off-hand remark from a fellow artist. I had just been experimenting with oil pastels, which at first felt like slippery crayons but soon grew to have their own life as I understood the best ways to achieve the colors and textures I wanted. The artist friend mentioned that you could also work with them using turpentine, either softening the crayons in it or drawing on the paper, then painting turpentine over the oil pastel to blend or spread. I chose to use a combination of these as well as wetting the paper with the turpentine and drawing on that area with the oil pastel. The resulting painting actually looks dimensional, and I know it’s only because of the different textures in the work.

Birches 2, detail

Here’s a detail of Birches 2: Radiance.

We have lovely birch groves here in Western Pennsylvania, and this image was reminiscent of one I had encountered while hiking somewhere near me. Not just the white bark, but the contrast with the thin dark twigs and ripples in the bark, is eye-catching, but that autumn display of yellow leaves is nearly blinding. Add a few other leaves to the mix and it becomes a classic autumn scene.

This painting is a real favorite in any color or size; I think others react to the details and the colors as I did when I saw the scene and visualized the painting.

The original is quite large, 22″ x 23″, and drawn in a very fine line black ink. I used a technical pen (a Rapidograph, if anyone remembers those) to draw all the details of the birch trees, taking nearly three weeks just to draw the trees. Even though I’d been visualizing it with the color added for the leaves, after all that work I was hesitant to start painting into the drawing for fear I’d mess it up and ruin all that work. But I got over that and began filling in the leaves in all shades of yellow.

Other subjects too

View from Beechwood

I’ll review other individual paintings as well, including their meaning to me at the time I painted them since, for some reason, most of my autumn paintings have a story having something to do with family, or my career, and even my cats.

I do have most of those stories posted along with the images on Etsy.

I have several originals still available, but I also have prints of each of them, framed and unframed, in all sizes from 8″ x  10″ to the full size of the painting, whatever that may be, and in grades from high quality digital to high quality giclee.

Deserted Cottages

Autumn Harvest

Autumn in the Valley

Squashes