Artist Bio
Alene paints southwestern-inspired landscapes in pastel. Her formal art training began after her academic training in forestry, 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."


About Pastels

What are Pastels?

It is up to the individual artist to decide which pastels and surfaces work best.  I use Mi-Teintes for many of my cactus paintings, and sanded paper when I'm working with detailed landscape images. I work on a variety of textured and sanded papers, using a range of soft to hard pastels and pastel pencils.