Pamela Clements

Colored pencil artist Pamela Clements grew up in Crawfordsville, a small town in west central Indiana, during a time when youth entertainment consisted of being outside, inventing daily adventures, and being forced to return home only when the street lights came on. She always felt at home searching the woods for morels in the spring, fishing, rock skipping along the banks of sugar creek, and camping out in the family owned woods during summer holidays. These experiences contributed to a developing curiosity of the natural world and a further appreciation of nature’s extraordinary shapes, rich luscious earthy colors, and unique seasonal changes that contribute to Pamela’s skillfully rendered natural still life artworks in colored pencil today.

Early on Pamela was labeled an artist and wore it proudly. She practiced drawing often and strongly believed drawing is the fundamental basis to all art. She practiced drawing her environment and learned to see details, to create lines, to render values and to love every step of the drawing process. Early encouragement of these developing art skills lead her to a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, specifically in drawing and graphic design, from IU Bloomington. After working as a designer for a printer, a publisher and an advertising agency, parental responsibilities put a pause on the design career but opened up another.

Leaving behind the sometimes impossible deadlines of advertising, Pamela began teaching elementary art for grades K-8 and art classes for the local art’s association. This change brought everything she had learned as an artist and everything experienced as a designer together to create an age based art curriculum responsible to teaching art skills, knowledge, history, and experience in the visual arts to her students. A career change from anything the customer wants, to everything kids should learn, leads to the curious question of what type of art would Pamela create on her own. She has always been an artist and drawing has always been her medium but it was the subject she was looking for.

The answer comes as Pamela finds her way back to her first loves of drawing and nature, specifically the woods. As she continues to study nature, searching for the extraordinary which she labels 'a purple leaf', she still believes that drawing is the fundamental basis of all art. Expanding her drawing skill to include colored pencils and clarifying the vision of 'a purple leaf' has given Pamela’s artworks a serenity of nature vision. Miles of woodland paths, continuing education of the colored pencil media, and the creative process, have all contributed to the colored pencil artworks Pamela makes today. The evolution of the media, the evolution of the artist, and the continual quest for 'a purple leaf' will contribute to the artworks she will make tomorrow and the next day.

I am a colored pencil artist inspired by the serenity of nature. The aesthetic beauty of leaves, diverse in types, shapes and colors, combined with elements of earth, water, sky, and stone, are the inspirations guiding my artistic journey to define what that serenity is. Frank Lloyd Wright said it best: “Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”

While the foliage of woodland trees leads me back to the natural world, it’s the beautiful organic lines, the rich earth colors, the dramatic lighting, the natural compositions, and the interesting textures that keep me there. I love to hear the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, to smell rich moist soil, to touch nature's textures, and to feel the calming tranquility of walking through the woods. Nature does not stand still but I strive to capture the special moments of beauty, of absolute wonder, to define this serenity of nature in my artworks.