Listen to the music of the waterfall! Take a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, to the National Parks of Yellowstone and Glacier. Experience the cool, musical features of fantastic waterfalls. Waterfalls can be an exciting and admittedly cliche topic to paint. But I cannot resist capturing the movement of cool waters over ancient stones found at cliffsides and in the valleys of the landscape. Here are my waterfall pastel paintings. I hope that they inspire you to head outdoors and seek these awesome natural wonders! Hidden Lake Waterfalls can be found along the trail to Hidden Lake at G ..read more

Art can be a continuous learning experience! In this StudioSense YouTube video of my latest pastel painting, "Saddle Pass Trail," check out how a messed up composition can be changed after much work has been completed! Watch the pastel demo. You can find the video here. Saddle Pass Trail is one of the major hikes at Badlands National Park. A steep ascent up a rocky hill brings you to a plateau with views of distant buttes and miles of prairie grass! This 12x16 pastel was created on Uart 400 grade paper and a motley collection of many pastel brands. By the way, I fixed the messed up part of th ..read more

As I build my new collection of pastel paintings depicting the beauty and awe of our National Parks, I am offering up to 50% off on original paintings! Bring home some truly unique vistas of our National Parks and the Great Lakes region. National Parks featured in my subject matter include the following: Badlands National Park Mount Rainier National Park North Cascades National Park Arches National Park Glacier National Park Acadia National Park Yellowstone National Park Grand Teton National Park Next year, I plan to visit Utah and Colorado to gather more inspiration for landscape pastel p ..read more

Another summer touring the National Parks has come to an end. I gathered a huge batch of reference photos for a new series of landscape paintings depicting the beauty and grandeur of the National Park landscapes. Our trip began in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and settled in South Dakota for our first night. After visiting the "must see" Dignity statue in Chamberlain once again, we headed across the Black Hills, into Wyoming (eating burgers while swatting flies in Sheridan), past a collection of Montana mountain ranges, and circumnavigated the huge Flathead Lake to Columbia Falls and Glacier National P ..read more

I'm not one to spread rumors, but I must insist that the beauty and awesome topography of Hocking Hills State Park near Logan, Ohio, ranks up there with the splendor and grandeur of our national parks! Located about one hour south of Columbus, hikers can spend up to two days and see all that Hocking Hills offers. Over 330 million years ago, this area of Central Ohio was submerged in the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean eventually receded, and erosion from streams and groundwater cut through the sandstone and formed the region's iconic rock and land formations. There's quite a variety of locations to ..read more

Hocking Hills State Park is a wonderful landscape to explore in Logan, Ohio, a bit south of Columbus. The landscape is similar to Hoosier National Forest which I hiked in early 2020. "Hocking Hills Hike" is a 9x12 pastel on Uart 400 pastel paper. There's a bit of abstract in this painting, not to mention a touch of wild color. Rocks are one of my favorite painting subjects, and they come in a variety of colors based on the minerals that they contain. I applied a bold blue acrylic underpainting, portions of which can be seen peaking from beneath the layers of pastel. I was attracted to the eme ..read more

When I am hiking, I take plenty of photographs. As many artists realize, photographs don't capture some of those pure colors and shades that one can see with the naked eye. Travel photos can get washed out in bright sunlight, or appear black in dark, shaded areas. "Corona Arch" a 12x16 pastel, was inspired by a photograph from a hike near Arches National Park in Utah. There was no lack of color in this sunrise scene! e deep red, pink and purple tones of the shaded landscape contrast sharply with the brilliant sunlight as the sun rose above the hills from the upper left. Rocks are one of my fa ..read more

Framing a pastel directly against the glass is called passe-partout framing. I thought to myself, really? Pastels are traditionally framed with a spacer between the art work and the mat or glass, to enable any particles of pastel to fall and not "dusty-up" the inside glass. With the sanded papers on the market today, however, stray pastel particles occur less frequently in framed pastel paintings. But I wanted to give this a try, so I chose a small pastel painting and a simple 8x10 frame. Here's the pastel painting, created en plein air (on site on a hot August morning) in the Pittsfield Prese ..read more

Hiking with my dog one early morning, I came across this scene at Prairie Park behind the Township Hall in Pittsfield Township, MI. I found the sky rather compelling and worth making it a focal point in this week's pastel painting. The cloud structure, the brightness of the early morning sky, and the contrasting shaded foreground convinced me to paint the 9x12 pastel painting below. "Winter's Transition" is this week's pastel demo and lesson on my StudioSense YouTube channel. Please visit my channel to pick up a host of pastel painting tips and a few artist jokes! You can email me and reques ..read more

The Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, MI., will host an exhibit featuring my landscapes of the National Parks, as well as fantastic pastel art by Anne Kindl and Linda Klenczar. On March 23rd, our opening reception starts at 5:30, is free and the public is welcome. Come join us and enjoy art and wine! Here are images of a few of my landscapes of the National Parks. I'm eager to head out west again and find more material to paint! "Light of the Mist," Yellowstone Falls, Yellowstone National Park "Corona Arch Sunrise," Arches National Park You can view the online pastel painting demo of Cor ..read more