Art by Niki Hilsabeck

"Hideaway" 8 x 10 Pastel (Oil and Chalk) on Canvas Click here to purchase It started out as a sketch on brown paper, using charcoal and ink, inspired by the gazebo outside Glen Ivy Hot Springs in California. Thinking (as usual) that it would look so much better in color, it became a pastel painting on canvas. I bought a bunch of little flat canvasses at a cheap price a while back, thinking they would be good for practice or plein aire. Using my previous charcoal and ink sketch as a guide, I blocked in the trees and gazebo with ultramarine blue chalk pastel on the canvas. I then used a wet brush to blend the blue chalk, identifying lights and darks and middle values. It sat in this stage for a while, as I wasn't sure whether to add more chalk, use the underpainting as a base for some acrylic, or to try out the oil and chalk combination. I knew I wanted the end result to have a warm, tropical mood, complete with a turquoise sky, lots of green, and a splash of red...

Tropicale 12 x 18 Chalk pastel on paper Click here to purchase  There are times when I find myself hating a piece until the very end, when it all finally starts to make sense. This usually happens when I try something a little different, and am not sure if the risk is going to pay off artistically or not. "Tropicale" was one of those pieces. Once it was complete, I was quite happy with the experiment. I used dark green Canson Mi-Teintes paper, thinking the green would blend nicely with the background. I thought I would try to exercise some patience and build the trees with layers of color. It quickly turned into a battle between the colors, and I was fighting to keep the trees from turning into mud. I finally realized that no matter how many layers of lights I added to the foliage, it wouldn't look right until I went back in with some darks. I used my almost black gray pastel, and worked in some tiny shadows to emphasize the lights. Once I was finished, I put the...