Tamer Pastel Landscapes | Iva Morris Gallery

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Although New Mexico artist Iva Morris is best known for her tempestuous Southwestern scenes of storms and tornadoes, she’s also painted less intense pastel landscapes, as seen below.

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To observe many of the less tempestuous weather events that she paints, Morris just has to step into her backyard. “I live in a farming community with huge mesas that provide a platform for several mountain ranges—the Manzanos, Los Pinos and the Magdelenas—on the east and west horizons,” she says.

Because Morris often works en plein air, she’s likely to see a big storm roll in, too, which results in more intense meteorological paintings. She first focused on these scenes about a decade ago. “I began to take photographs of dust devils and the approaching storms,” she says. “I made a lot of sketches and began adding a variety of media to the surface to capture the visual phenomena of storms.”

See Morris’ stormy landscapes in the October 2016 issue of Pastel Journal, available in print and as a download at northlightshop.com. Available on newsstands September 13.

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