Pastel plein air landscape painting of an old farmstead

Pastel painting 11 inches x 8.5 inches $200

Please contact me if you are interested in similar artwork.

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….

Pastel painting of old, dilapidated barns and out buildings

Pastel painting 11 inches x 8 inches $300

Please contact me if you are interested in similar artwork.

Sunday was another gorgeous day to paint plein aire. I’ve been pining to paint this place but there are “no trespassing” signs posted all over it. Yesterday I decided that as long as I sat out on the edge of the road, I wouldn’t be encroaching. I set up and began to work on the pastel painting, and sure as shootin, up drives the landowner. I thought I was in big trouble but he was a delightful older man who told me the whole 200 year history of the farm. He was honored that someone still thought it was worthy of notice and welcomed me to walk among the ruins. This type of real world history fascinates me and made the pastel landscape all the more relevent to me…

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.