Art by Niki Hilsabeck

"View from the Jetty" 9 x 12 Chalk Pastel on Paper Click here to purchase I took the photo that inspired this painting last year, on a cold day at the beach.  I didn't get around to painting it until this year, on an extremely hot day at home. Looking around at the finished pieces and works in progress sitting around my kitchen, I realized that every one of them had a common element: water.  Even my landscapes have a bit of water in them.  I thought back to my high school days, when I first really tried to make paintings of my own.  I remembered that they usually had some water or waves in them too. I don't live near water, but it's not too far to drive to the beach.  I'm also happy to paint swimming pools, ponds, and lakes.  I'm not sure what it is about water, but a painting feels much more comfortable to me if it has some in it.  One thing I've learned about painting all these water scenes is the importance of shadow under the light....

"Gull Talk" 9 x 12 Chalk Pastel on Paper Click here to buy print: http://www.redbubble.com/people/nikihilsabeck/art/6751782-1-gull-talk-pastel Another late night painting, when I had no business being awake. Since I was (barely), I thought I would break out the chalk, hoping to ease that anxiety that builds up when I haven't made a complete painting in a day or two. I had no idea what to paint, but I knew I wanted to use those extra soft pastels with the hot colors. I went for a combination of blue-green and yellow-orange, with a little red-orange for emphasis in the middle ground. I ran into the same problem I always do when I choose to focus on color: a flat painting without any real areas that were clearly defined. I know I'm not a painter who can go entirely without some value (lights and darks) to define my subjects, so I added just a touch of black pastel to give the birds, pipe, rocks, and fire pit a little more definition. The painting wasn't working at f...

"Winter Meeting" 12 x 18 Chalk Pastel on Paper Click here to buy print: http://www.redbubble.com/people/nikihilsabeck/art/6417412-1-winter-meeting-pastel Click here to see more of my animal themed art: http://artbynikihilsabeck.blogspot.com/p/fauna-i-animals.html I tried this subject earlier on a small piece of paper, and between the tiny size of the paper and the bluntness of the pastels (I don't use the pencils too often), there just wasn't enough room. I've always liked this idea though-- birds at sunset in Oceanside, California, on one of those winter days when there are more birds than people on the beach. So, I decided to give it another try with large Canson watercolor paper and "winter" colors, which for me are gold and purple (at least at the beach!) Instead of trying to realistically copy the photo, I went for a looser approach, and did only a little smearing at the end. I tried to keep the colors in the water broken, with harder edges, and the...