Dreamscape in Pink: Emotional Landscapes of Color

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Dreamscape in Pink (2025)

Oil Pastels on Paper, Varnished, Signed and Framed
45 x 35 cm
By Laura Bernardeschi Nelson, 2025

Dreamscape in Pink was born from a desire to explore the delicate boundary between what we see and what we feel — a place where imagination and memory meet in color. Working with oil pastels allowed me to embrace both spontaneity and control. Unlike paint, oil pastels demand presence: every mark, every blend, every stroke is immediate. They invite the hands to sculpt light directly onto the surface, creating texture that cannot lie.

Technique: Sculpting Light and Emotion

For this piece, I started with a strong gradient sky in shades of pink, magenta, and lavender, building the atmosphere first. Oil pastels were layered gently, then pushed and softened with fingertips, blending starlike dots and bursts of warm golden tones into the upper sky. The rising sun was created with circular, meditative motions, letting the colors glow organically from within rather than layering harsh contrasts.

The mountains were shaped with cooler greys and violets, applying pressure to carve their form, then softening the surfaces again to allow the mist to merge with the peaks. This interplay of solidity and vapor is essential: the mountains represent grounding, while the clouds represent the mind in motion — shifting, dissolving, re-forming.

Once the entire scene was finished, I applied a protective varnish to fix the pigment and enrich the depth of color, enhancing that luminous, dreamlike effect. The final result is tactile, textured, and intentionally imperfect, mirroring the landscapes we carry inside ourselves.

Philosophy: A Visual Meditation on Stillness

My inspiration for Dreamscape in Pink was the idea that landscapes can be emotional spaces. This artwork is not about a specific place; instead, it is the essence of many places — the quiet before sunrise, the soft mystery of fog, the gentle hopefulness of warm light breaking through.

I wanted the viewer to feel a moment of stillness, to experience a breath within the artwork. The swirling clouds symbolize movement and internal change, while the sun offers reassurance and renewal. The stars scattered across the sky hint at the coexistence of night and day, reminding us that transitions are not abrupt but fluid.

At its heart, Dreamscape in Pink is a meditation on balance: between solidity and softness, light and shadow, reality and imagination. It is an emotional landscape meant to invite contemplation and inner calm.