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!

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.

Senior Pet Adoption Donation Program

Peaches and Peonies, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

I pledge to support senior adoption programs at shelters by making a donation from the sale of every full-size or half-size gicleé print of “Peaches and Peonies.”

I’ve told many stories about Peaches on this site so you know her story of losing her person and entering my life when she was fifteen as a foster, and that we shared a very fulfilling five years before she passed though others were afraid to adopt her for fear she’d die soon. That was not in Peaches’ plan, and not in the plan for most older pets who need homes!

For Adopt a Senior Pet Month I’m featuring this donation offer involving prints of the portrait I painted of her. She’d like the idea that she’s still helping people adopt senior pets and helping shelters help senior pets, and I like the idea that I help to spread her memory through my artwork.

I actually began this program in 2008, when I finished this painting and had it professionally reproduced to make the highest-quality gicleé prints in addition to lower-cost digital prints. The idea flourished as I worked on the painting and I couldn’t wait to get the word out—wouldn’t everyone want to adopt a senior kitty if they saw one as beautiful as my Peaches?

Read on for Peaches’ story and the details of the program.

detail of painting

About Peaches

Peaches came to my home at age 15, and despite my efforts to place her in a new home, she ended up staying with me. Most prospective adopters were concerned that Peaches was older and might not live long, but my point was that Peaches needed a home no matter what age she was. At the time this painting was done, she’d been with me three years, her petite prettiness, pleasant personality and simple friendliness providing much joy for me, and she was a big favorite of most visitors to my home. And then, she’s also the subject of not only this painting, but several other paintings and sketches as well as photographs, so in three years she provided a good bit of inspiration, not to mention wake-up duties and not-so-gentle reminders about it being dinnertime.

Peaches came to be homeless because her owner died; she was nearly euthanized because no one could figure out what to do with her, not wanting to take her to a shelter. Often, older pets come from situations like this, or where the owner has to enter the hospital or a care home, and no one can take the animal left behind. They are euthanized by the family or end up in shelters and are most often passed by, even though a “seasoned” pet usually makes the best companion.

Three years or three decades or three weeks, every adoptable animal like Peaches deserves a good and loving home. Especially now, during Adopt a Senior Pet Month, consider helping those who are most vulnerable.

detail of painting

Purchase a print and choose your senior pet adoption program

Giclée prints are printed on heavyweight acid-free archival paper using light-fast archival inks using a direct liquid printing process so fine that my prints are often indistinguishable from my originals. Each print is signed by me, the artist. I prefer this process not only because of its clarity and precision but also because I can order only one print at a time instead of ordering dozens or hundreds, and it costs the same per print no matter how many I get. For that reason, I order them from my printer as I receive orders

• Full-size, 23″ x 16″, $150.00
• Half-size, 13″ x 9″, $75.00 (see “framing” below)

You pay for the print and give me the name of the senior pet adoption program of your choice. I process your order and send a donation to the program in your name or the name of your choosing, and either ask them to send you an acknowledgement or send you one myself. I usually make the donations through PayPal since most shelters use it now, and I can send you a acknowledgement through PayPal.

detail of painting

Shipping

I can ship the smaller prints flat for $10.95, but need to ship the full-size prints rolled for economy at $15.95 since the package is slightly oversized when shipping flat. However, I can ship flat for $25.95, or a surcharge of $10.00. I’m not fond of rolled prints, but I don’t like bent ones either.

Framing

Framing is often more expensive than the art itself. Custom framing is available for an estimate; I custom frame all my own things. To save a little bit on framing, I chose 13″ x 9″ for the the smaller print so that it would fit into a pre-made 16″ x 20″ frame that comes with an 11″ x 14″ mat leaving white space around the print, which is typical in framing a high-quality print. The larger will fit into a pre-made 24″ x 30″ frame, though you may need to purchase a mat since most larger frames don’t come with a mat.

Detail of painting

Ordering

Visit the Portraits of Animals Marketplace on my website, choose “Cats” under “Original Art and Prints”, or click here to go directly to “Peaches and Peonies” in my Marketplace. In your PayPal shopping cart you’ll be able to give special instructions, and you can add that you’d like to donate through the program and give me the contact information for the shelter of your choice.

You can also visit my Etsy shop, and when you order through PayPal you’ll be able to enter instructions about your chosen donation program.

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.

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

Little Framed Pen and Ink Cat Prints

I Like Your Spots

You can hardly tell where one kitty ends and the other begins in “I Like Your Spots” featuring two black and white kitties cuddling together.

I created these little pen and ink sketches years ago and had them printed into note cards, selling them as sets entitled “Kitties Being Kitties”.

The prints are printed in black ink on cream-colored acid-free felt-finish card stock. I hand-cut oval mats in all different colors for these little prints and have three in stock in my Etsy shop: the purple and violet you see here, another in peach and green mats and yet another with just a single sky blue mat.

The Miss You When You're Gone

The frame on each is the same half-inch composite wood in a distressed soft antique gold finish.

The overall size is 8″ x 9″.

And doesn’t every cat owner recognize the look out the window as the two tabbies await the homecoming in “They Miss You When You’re Gone”? It’s printed from a pencil sketch of two tabby cats waiting at the window. It’s framed in a 5″ x 7″ round profile solid wood white-finish frame with a pink mat I’ve cut to fit the image, and you can also find this in my Etsy shop.

These have turned out to be wonderful gifts for children’s rooms and for small areas that just need a touch of color—and a kitty. Click on over and see if anything matches your decor in my shop on Etsy.

Pear Trees on Main Street

Pear Trees on Main Street, pastel © B. E. Kazmarski

Out of the mist and darkness of winter, spring emerges slowly until one day she is in full bloom on a breezy, warm and sunny morning on Main Street. This may not be my usual animal-themed artwork, but a piece near to my heart, inspired by this time of year.

When I was growing up, Carnegie’s Main Street was our “downtown”; we only went to Pittsburgh’s downtown on rare occasions. My parents grew up in Carnegie, walking this Main Street, I attended Catholic grade school not far from here and walked here myself as a child. My first full-time job was at the Isaly’s deli where, in the course of the week, you saw just about everyone who lived in town when they stopped in for lunch, for a chocolate chip Skyscraper ice cream cone or a pound or two of chipped ham for school lunches. When I graduated college and found an apartment on the bus line so I could ride the bus to work instead of buying a car, I walked down Main Street at the end of every day, passing the fruit market, butcher shop, shoe store, drug store, jewelry shop, even the Isaly’s, that had been there when I was a child, some for decades before that.

And so when I painted “Pear Trees on Main Street”, showing the block of Main Street from Broadway down to about Sansbury when the ornamental pear trees are in bloom, both the current day and all those memories, and all the stories my parents told me about Carnegie from their childhoods, worked their way into the painting.

On an April morning in 2003 when I turned my bicycle onto Main Street and saw the pear trees, the sunlight, the bustling nature of a street I remembered even from childhood, I snapped a few photos, started a quick, small pastel sketch, then packed it all away for another time. Later that year I was looking for sketches and paintings to enter into our annual community art exhibit, “Carnegie Painted”, and found the sketch, looked up the photos and finished it in time for the show.

This painting is a favorite locally, and I think in part it’s because a lot of other people who can remember Carnegie ‘way back when’ can see that memorable Carnegie Main Street under the current day image, that small town structure that makes Carnegie such a special place is still there underneath. It’s been a favorite of mine from the moment I finished it, and I think that’s one of the reasons why.

It’s also a favorite of people who have never been here because it simply looks like a friendly and familiar small town Main Street anywhere in the US—or in many other countries, for that matter.

Fidelity Bank in Carnegie purchased this painting for the opening of their new building at 100 Broadway Street, so I get to visit the original when I go to my bank. I still have it available as a print in my online gallery “My Home Town” and as a notecard in a set created from that show featuring a dozen of my favorite sketches and paintings from ten years of “Carnegie Painted”.

Spring Cleaning, original pastel and prints

Spring Cleaning, pastel © B. E. Kazmarski

MEDIUM: Pastel; IMAGE SIZE: 14″ x 20″; 2006

I’ve reduced this to $250.00 matted and framed; I’d love to see it go home with someone!

This is an original pastel painting on hand-prepared acid-free drawing paper.

The backyard of an old farmhouse near me, I was drawn at first by the forsythia, which was right on the edge of the road as I drove past, then as I slowed down I saw the colorful hanging laundry, always a favorite subject. That hazy spring sunlight with long shadows on the grass, young leaves on the trees and the white-sided house all combined in a scene that could have been any year in the previous century when everyone hung their laundry outside and that first spring day warm enough to dry it left it smelling so fresh.

Here’s a detail of the laundry:

Detail of laundry area.

Detail of frame

This is painted with chalk pastel from photos and from life. The image is 14″ x 20″ with a two-inch tan marble acid-free mat and a vintage antique gold frame with premium clear glass. The painting is wired on the back and ready to hang.

Original

$250.00 plus $50.00 shipping and handling

Click here to find it in my Etsy shop.

Prints

Full-size giclee: $125.00
Half-size giclee: $75.00

Framed digital 8×10: $45.00
Framed digital 5×7: $25.00

Click here to find the prints in my online Marketplace (scroll a few items down the page).

Soon I’ll be hanging mine outside!

Winter White

Panhandle Outbound, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

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.

Morning Snow 2, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

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 go out and play in it, and paint and photograph it.

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.

Jammin Jay Blues, pastel © B. E. Kazmarski

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.

Winter Window, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

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. If you go there, find a painting called “The Magpie” by Claude Monet.

Solstice, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

“Solstice”, pastel, 6″ x 6″

This 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”.

If you’re interested in any of the originals, please send me an e-mail; the available originals have prices listed. I also have prints of most of them, and because they are small they are available for $15.00 plus $5.00 in shipping. In the meantime, enjoy my views of winter! Visit Winter White.

The Mourning Doves Are Biding Their Time

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

Something about the light today, this bright overcast with snow still on the ground, the birds sitting very still in the bare trees, reminds me of this pencil drawing which hangs near my desk here in my office.

What do doves do all day? Just kind of hang out waiting for something to happen? The doves always seem to have some purpose beyond just sitting there, but sit they will for hours, moving only slightly, perhaps waiting for friends to join them.

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. 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.

Detail of dove with branches.

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.

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.

The drawing is 22″ wide x 16″ high, matted with a 4″ tan acid-free mat with 1/8″ charcoal acid-free mat, framed with a 1″ burnished gold metal frame with silver inner edge and nailhead detail. The backing is acid-free foam core and the glass is premium clear glass.

This is also available as two sizes of prints, one at 18″ x 24″ and one at 11″ x 14″. The 11″ x 14″ print is shown here.

All are available in my Etsy shop using the links below.

Frame and mats on original sketch.

Original sketch of “Biding Time“

The drawing is 22″ wide x 16″ high, matted with a 4″ tan acid-free mat with 1/8″ charcoal acid-free mat, framed with a 1″ burnished gold metal frame with silver inner edge and nailhead detail. The backing is acid-free foam core and the glass is premium clear glass.

Frame and mat on giclee print.

Large Framed Giclee of “Biding Time“

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

11" x 14" framed print of "Biding Time".

Small Framed Digital Print of “Biding Time”

This digital print is 10″ wide x 8″ high, matted with a 1-3/4″ white linen mat lined with a 1/4″ black linen mat and 1-1/2″ matte black wood frame. The backing is acid-free foam core and the glass is premium clear glass.