Pastel painting 8.5 inches x 11.5 inches

This is the last painting I made in Harbor Springs when we were “up north.” I stopped on a quiet little dirt road far from the tourists when I saw the bright light filtering through the trees. There was NOBODY around. Halfway through the painting a car stopped and a couple stepped out to see my pastel landscape. We chatted for quite a while. Turns out the woman’s brother was a plein air artist –who died of Lyme’s disease! You would think being an artist is a poor-paying but relatively safe career. I guess not. I quickly applied another layer of bug repellant.

Plein air pastel landscape painting of Harbor Springs, Michigan from above

Pastel painting 8.5 inches x 11.5 inches

We spent a wonderful long weekend in Charlevoix, Michigan over Memorial Day. Its a trip that we take with our good friends every year and we always look forward to it. The guys golf, the ladies shop and I paint. At night we enjoy wonderful food, wine and friendship.  I dropped off a lot of new paintings to Tvedten Fine Art, my gallery in Harbor Springs, and of course, I painted my way there and back.

This pastel landscape is from the bluff that overlooks the beautiful harbor. Luckily I was able to find a For Sale sign up in front of one of the gorgeous mansions on the hill. It looked like no one was home…I hope they didn’t mind this plein air artist parking in front and blocking their view…

Plein air pastel landscape painting of the bay near Harbor Springs, Michigan.

Pastel painting 8 inches x 11 inches   SOLD

Hmmm…..I think I may change my mind. I think THIS may be my favorite pastel painting from our trip to Northern Michigan.

I’ve really been trying to simplify my plein air attempts lately. I want to capture the very essence of a scene but not overload it with endless, useless details. It may sound simple but it is really very difficult to do. When you are on location there are so many items and sounds and smells vying for your attention. And everything you see seems worthy of portraying in your artwork. I find that if I focus on what drew me to the scene in the first place, I have a better chance of eliminating all of the extra “foo-foo” that seems to creep in. It seems that they way overused acronym “KISS” (Keep it simple, stupid) really does apply in some instances–especially pastel landscape painting.

Plein air pastel landscape painting of Spring Lake near Harbor Springs, Michigan.

Pastel painting 6 inches x 9 inches   $100

Please contact me if you are interested in similar artwork.

On Friday, I researched all of the nature conservancy areas near Harbor Springs so that I would be ready to paint early Saturday morning, the day of the paint out. Spring Lake is a beautiful little area between Harbor Springs and Petoskey. I painted this pastel landscape about 4 pm when the reflections were strong. The lily pads made a strong, bright focal point for the piece.

I had an unusual and exciting phone call on that day. The set designers on the remake of the movie “Red Dawn” called me and asked if they could use one of my painting notecards (below) in their film! The movie is being shot in Detroit and one of the art directors picked up my card from one of the galleries in the area. They couldn’t promise that it would appear, but it was still a neat request!