Emerging Spring, pastel on pastelmat, 13.5 x 19.5, 2021 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Emerging Spring, pastel on pastelmat, 13.5 x 19.5, 2021 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Emerging Spring was the featured artwork for this year's Seasons on the Panhandle Trail exhibit. I had the feeling I would sell this original painting around Rock the Quarry this year, but I never take it for granted. There are a few people who have purchased different genres of my original art over the years, and Emerging Spring fits into several categories: water, seasons, western Pennsylvania woods. The person who's collected most of my seascapes and who also grew up in Western PA decided to purchase it before Rock the Quarry and now the original will go home.

A scene tucked away along my favorite trail, I've visualized this spring painting for probably all the 20 years I've been walking this trail. Carefully tiptoeing through the brush at the edge of the opposite bank I leaned out, holding on to a sapling for balance, to see the suddenly brilliant mosses contrasting with the fading reddish leaf cover, the limestone cliff in all its details reflected in the water burbling around the bend below, deeper than usual for the spring thaws, trees clinging to the edge, the mist in the woods beyond.

Photographs were difficult because of the brush growing along the bank I stood on, and I did my best to capture it each year from slightly different angles but knew a painting would be the only way to share this moment of awakening when, soon, all the trees would fill with shadows, the stream ripple and roar over the rocks and bird song fill the woods, all beginning at this moment.

Land, or water?

I debated classifying this as a landscape or a waterscape. There seems to be more land in this one so it's a landscape, but I may also feature it with water because the water was instrumental in creating the scene. Why not?

"Emerging Spring" is available in various prints and canvases. Please visit the product post here.

Take a look at other featured artwork and desktop calendar posts.

Each month I feature a piece of artwork or a photo from the archives to the present day, tell its story, and set it up as a free downloadable desktop calendar for just about every electronic device available.