Here's a little positive pastel news for your Friday afternoon: San Jose artist Terri Ford has won the Best Pastel Award at the 15th Annual Carmel Art Festival’s Plein Air Event. The winning painting, Carmel Dusk (above) was inspired by Ford's affinity for the Carmel landscape, the sand dunes at Carmel Beach in particular. “The dunes are most captivating to me in early morning and at dusk when the play of light and shadows is most magical,” she says. (Ford was our December 2006 cover artist.)