road show #1

For years I’ve been taking reference photos out the window of a moving vehicle. Many are completely useless: lots of telephone poles, other vehicles and roadside guard rails. But a few can be used as inspiration. This is the first of my Road Show series. “November,” pastel on paper 7 x 11 inches.

website update

My website has just undergone its yearly update thanks to

Kay Dewar of Dewar Design. Please take a look!
GO to Barbara's Website

november editorial

This month, I was honored to be asked to contribute an editorial for the Northwest Pastel Society. I began to write about WHY WE PAINT but ended up talking about bottles. Read the editorial and then look around the site. Penny Chadwell has created a beautiful and informative web presence for the organization.

out of control

I’m beginning to believe that if I paint from the heart, I don’t have much control over the end result. This was meant to be an abstract based on the composition of “Sky View Path” but it just kept leaning toward literal. I love how it looks unframed because the brick color of the paper and the lively strokes show. To see how “Passage” looks framed, CLICK HERE.

a change of seasons

It's Friday; I don't know where the week went. Today's painting is inspired by our weather - a storm last night and a rainy day today. As with this painting (reading left to right), the fall color in the trees has moved to the ground. "A Change of Seasons."

red easel

A nice surprise this morning: my work has been included in the November 2009 newsletter on Red Easel.
Mary Susan Vaughn, a professional visual artist, created Red Easel as a place for artists to connect, show their work, talk about art and find art-related information.

fourth in the series

Fourth in this series is "Sky View Path," same size as the previous painting, image 9.5 x 16 inches framed to 18 x 24 inches. I found two double, off-white mats in the studio, the motivation for this horizontal format.