Cathedral of Ice: Exploring Luminosity in Oil Pastels with laura Bernardeschi Nelson

Cathedral of Ice — oil pastels on paper

£500

This piece began with a simple intention: to paint cold as something luminous, not dead. Cathedral of Ice is an original work in oil pastels on paper, built through layered colour, pressure changes, and deliberate abrasion—so the landscape feels both vast and tactile.

I started by establishing a cool structure: a field of pale blues and soft violets laid in broad passes, then softened and dragged to create a ground that reads as wind-polished snow. Over that, the mountain range was constructed with alternating edges—some sharp, some dissolved—because ice is never one texture. The peaks are formed with heavier pressure and denser pigment, then broken back with lighter pastel and blending to mimic fracture planes, powder, and frost bloom. I kept the shadow temperatures slightly muted so the mountains hold their weight without turning black.

The aurora was treated differently: less “object,” more movement. I pulled the green through the blue in long upward strokes, allowing the colour to taper and breathe, like light climbing into height. Small flecks of warm yellow are placed sparingly—tiny notes against the dominant cold—so the sky feels electrically alive rather than decorative.

What I love about oil pastel is its contradiction: it can be soft as mist and yet stubbornly physical. In Cathedral of Ice, that contradiction becomes the subject. The mountains stand like pillars, the sky becomes a vaulted ceiling of shifting light, and the snow below turns into a quiet floor—an open space where silence feels almost architectural.

The artwork is signed, varnished, framed, and ready to hang.