Art by Niki Hilsabeck

It's hard not to be inspired by the skies here in Southern California-- particularly at this time of year, with storms moving in and out throughout the days. "Evening Sky" 4.5 x 5.5 inch pastel on paper Click here to view large At the risk of sounding like a mommy-blogger, I've fallen behind in my artwork and posting since summer ended for a couple of reasons (they rhyme with "mildren").  I've also fallen into a bit of a painting slump, but the sunsets and sunrises here in Fallbrook have drawn me back into making more time for artwork. We're having a particularly vibrant winter, as the frequent rain invigorates the contrasting colors in the landscape here.  We've also had some noisy horned owls, who like to announce their imminent departure each morning just before the sun begins to rise.  This means I'm usually up early to get a peek at the silhouette of our vocal visitors before they fly off to hide and sleep-- and if I can keep my ...

I was beginning to suspect that blue was becoming my go-to color in all of my work-- I tend to use a lot of color complements, so if I pick up the blue, that attaches me to orange. It's just that it seems that blue is everywhere I look-- black, gray, even white often looks blue to me. I should have seen this coming; as a child, I colored all of the models' teeth in my mom's magazines blue, because I thought blue teeth looked prettier. I knew there was a problem when I glanced through my Red Bubble favorites a few days ago, and noticed I had selected almost exclusively blue-based pictures. I had also completed a monochromatic painting ("Blue 'Tude") and even joined a Red Bubble group for works strictly done in blue. In the original book The Wizard of Oz , the Emerald City looked green to its inhabitants because everyone had to wear green-tinted glasses. I don't want my choices to to be limited as though I am wearing my own version of tinted glasses. So,...

Although I loved thecolors and the mood of my original sunset painting (left), I knew it had a major problem with composition-- it looked split in half. So, I got up early and made a whole new painting. The second round went much easier, which shows there is something to be said for having a plan in mind. The figures changed a little, but I was much happier with the second painting. "Three for the Sunset" (image on right) 9 x 12 Pastel on Paper ORIGINAL SOLD I have two more features on RedBubble: "Portrait" can be seen on the "All Things Egyptian" page, and "Mission Creek, San Luis Obispo, CA" was just featured on the "California Sound" page. ...