Southwestern Landscapes in Pastel by Alene: 6/21/09

Friday, June 26, 2009

The Mohawk In Progress

Cactus with a Mohawk Too
24" x 18" on Mi-Teintes paper
In Progress

Cactus with a Mohawk has proven to be a favorite, and I sold the original several years ago. I am working on another cactus with a mohawk, and no two paintings are alike, but this one has the potential to be just as popular as the original mohawk. I'm still working on a few details but it's getting close.

Running out of fixative mid-painting was a challenge today.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A productive day

Today I finished Cactus! and framed it. It's in a black frame and looks nice. I also finished a piece on velour paper (messy!) called Delicate and it's a painting of Delicate Arch in Utah.

About the Artist

Artist Bio

Alene paints southwestern-inspired landscapes in pastel. Her formal art training began after her academic training in forestry and earning a doctorate in natural resources recreation. She started painting in acrylics and mixed media, then discovered pastels as her favorite medium, studying under pastelist Alene Rucker of Mesa, Arizona. She now lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she works from her home studio.

As an outdoors enthusiast and longtime ultraendurance runner, she loves to run in the desert and mountains. Her paintings are inspired by the sights, sounds, and energy of the landscape in the colorful and rugged places through which she runs. Alene observes the subtle and dramatic changes in light and shadows throughout the days and seasons, and re-creates these in her paintings. She accentuates the effects of wind, sun, weather, and time, and emphasizes motion in the skies, using rich textures of paper and bold colors of pastels to draw the viewer into the scene and share the feelings of being there.

Her work has been described as "imaginative and inspiring" and "a sense of wonder in vibrant color". Alene says of her work, "When I'm running, I go way back on trails into places that most people never see. I see old buildings and structures remaining from the past, they remind me of how we used to live in a simpler time. The elements of the desert and mountain landscapes inspire me, clouds moving across the sky, colors in the rocks, energy in the trees and plant life, I try to capture all of this in my paintings."

Southwestern Landscapes in Pastel by Alene

Friday, June 26, 2009

The Mohawk In Progress

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A productive day

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About the Artist

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