Pastel landscape painting of a road leading to an old barn in winter.

Pastel painting 6 inches x 9 inches     SOLD

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The warm sunlight and cool shadows on snow make it really fun to paint pastel landscape paintings from winter scenes. This barn, right down the road from our home, looks really stunning around 1 pm. in the afternoon. The sun creates a perfect highlight on the snow covered shed roof.

Busy day at our Ann Arbor advertising agency tomorrow, but Friday I’m hoping to start on another winter pastel painting.

If you have a chance, come by the opening for the Braun Farm show at My Favorite Cafe in downtown Saline on Friday night 7-9pm!

Plein air pastel landscape painting of a distant farm from the autumn fields.

Pastel painting 10 inches x 8 inches       SOLD

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Some of the painters around Saline, Michigan are coming together to exhibit artworks of a special farm near our town. “Visions of Braun Farms” will be displayed in January and February of next year in downtown Saline. I have completed one piece, but on Sunday I thought I’d try another plein air pastel landscape painting of the beautiful old farm. The fields had all been plowed under and there was very little local color this late in November. But I was drawn to the buildings on the crest with the tractor tracks leading up to them. As I painted, a storm clouds appeared to be moving in so I included them to create a little drama.

Plein air pastel landscape painting of a distant barn seen from the fields

Pastel painting 9.5 inches x 6 inches       SOLD

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This beautiful old farm on Judd Road in Saline caught my eye last weekend. On cloudy days, it would seem like the landscape should be dull and drab, but its really the exact opposite. All the colors become hyper saturated in relation to the dismal sky.  I love autumn in Michigan when all the crops turn rusty ochre. To me, a pastel painting of golden soy bean fields can be more exciting than the traditional landscapes filled with brightly colored fall trees. I painted this piece on white paper that I had underpainted with a bright red watercolor wash. I like to leave some of that red color peaking through the pastel to unify the painting.

Hope the weather holds so that I can get out again this weekend…

Plein air pastel painting of a shaded farmhouse surrounded by fields of golden wheat

Pastel painting 8 inches x 10 inches   $200

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This is a plein air pastel landscape of the farm I fell in love with on Sunday. It was such a perfect day and the wheat field was so massive and awe inspiring, that it just took my breath away. I spent a good 2 hours in the midday sun painting 2 farmscape views. I would have stayed longer if the sun and bugs hadn’t wore me down.

A big thank you to all my pastel buddies over at the WetCanvas.com pastel forum. Whenever I am in a quandry about a painting, this talented group of pastel artists always gives me good advice to improve it. Its really great to have fresh eyes view your work because sometimes the artist is just too dang CLOSE to it!

Plein air pastel landscape painting of a barn and other farm buildings.

Pastel painting 9 inches x 6.5 inches   $100

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Another  plein air pastel landscape of the farmlands around Saline, Michigan. I painted this one in the late afternoon again, waste deep in a field of wheat. It was a great location except for the millions of bugs that almost ate me alive. And of course, I forgot my bug repellant!

I’m so excited about the 4 commissions I am working on this month! I will be posting a few of them in the next couple of days.

And, (oh my god!), I’ve joined the twitter nation. If you liked to follow my tweets, catch me at http://twitter.com/jillwagnerart

Have a great 4t of July weekend!

Pastel plein air landscape painting of an old farmstead

Pastel painting 11 inches x 8.5 inches $200

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This beautiful old farmstead sits right in the middle of a whole gaggle of subdivisions. It seems to be holding on to its proud farming tradition and had a certain spunky diginity to it. I hadn’t captured it in my watercolor farmscape series yet so I thought I’d give it a try in pastel. While I was painting, the one and only policeman in our township stopped by and sternly asked me what I was doing. I must have looked pretty darn suspicious there, sitting on the side of the road– with my pastels….

Watercolor painting of farm and fields along a country road.

Watercolor painting 8.5 inches x 6.5 inches
$80

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The fields are turning green here and I am getting excited about getting out and doing plein air watercolor paintings again. There are still many old farms in the Saline area of Michigan that I haven’t captured yet. But soon I will have to widen my scope and head farther west. At some point, I hope to have documented nearly every farm in the area with a landscape painting.

Pastel painting of an old farmstead covered in snow.

Pastel painting 10 inches x 10 inches $450

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OK. I lied. One more of my new winter pastel paintings. This old farmstead down the road from our house looks gorgeous in the winter sunlight…but not so much in the spring and summer. So I decided to paint it one more time before all the snow melted.

My new absolute favorite pastel paper is Kitty Wallis Belgium Mist. It has a wonderful sandy texture and a warm grey tint that takes pastels beautifully. I also do a lot of my work on Art Spectrum paper–especially Terra Cotta. The warm rust color is a great background for landscapes and florals that are heavy in green tones.

Watercolor painting 8.5 inches x 5 inches $100 + shipping

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A grey day in western Washtenaw County, Michigan. It was drizzling and the clouds were gathering. But an amazing thing happens when the sun is hidden behind the clouds. The colors of the landscape become much more saturated and rich. The grazing sheep added a pastoral effect to the scene.

Watercolor painting 9 inches x 6 inches $100 + shipping

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It was an absolutely beautiful weekend here so I HAD to go out and paint. Everytime I hit the back roads I think that it will be the last time of the season. This pretty farmstead was dripping in light and shadow-my favorite scenario. Roxy sat quietly next to me but suddenly started barking out of control. I looked up and a huge old cow was looking at her from across the road. It was her first time so close to a bovine and I think it freaked her out. With her herding heritage, you’d think she’d try to round it up, but noooooo……

Watercolor painting 9 inches x 4 inches $100 + shipping

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Sunday morning it was very foggy and grey and I seriously considered not dragging myself out to paint. I love light and shadow and there certainly wasn’t any of that happening out there. But I decided not to be a wimp. I wandered the countryside til I found this neat old place nestled in a hill on a dirt road. Roxy sat with me out in a wet field while I painted.  It was so damp that the watercolor would not dry on the paper! Such is the life of a farm-painting gal!

Watercolor painting 8.5 inches x 5.5 inches 100 + shipping

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The last plein air watercolor painting from my Labor Day escapade. I drive by this weathered, old barn all the time when I take Roxy out to her “babysitter”. I’ve always wanted to paint it but it sits on a very active farm with the family and workers coming and going alot. I figured they would think I was crazy to want to paint this old building. But I got brave last week and set myself up across the road. The old farmer came out and gave me a long look, shook his head and walked back in the house. He probably said to his wife “honey, you won’t believe this, but there’s a gal parked right outside and….”