Pastels
Next to oil painting, pastels are probably my most favorite medium to work in. In fact, if it were not for the incredible cost it takes to matte, and frame these pieces I might work exclusively in pastels. At least with oil paintings you can always paint the sides and let the buyer purchase a frame -something they tend to want to do anyway so it fits with their decor.
With pastels however, the careful selection of a matte and the frame can almost become part of the artwork itself. Indeed, if you were to ask a framer, I’m sure that’s would they would say.
As with many of the subject matters for my different mediums, landscapes and pastels tend to dominate the theme. Landscapes probably being my most favorite subject, are usually done from my photography. For me photographs of landscapes are okay as an art form, unless of course you’re shooting in black and white – that is truly an art form – but for the most part I think photos of landscapes just okay. But when you take a great photograph and add to it, the emotion and the experience of that scenic view, it brings to life a completely different approach
The Bamboo Path :
This was done from photography in Jamaica. If you’ve never been, it is certainly worth the trip. Just south of Cuba, it has a very diverse terrain. It has beautiful white sand beaches, it has fantastic mountain ranges where they grow the very expensive “Black Mountain Coffee,” it has Amazon type jungle rivers with famous alligators larger than the tour boats, and it has these beautiful bamboo forests that are as tall as some pine trees. Here, the unique way they lean together to create a canopy over the trail, and they way the light shines through the branches, lent itself very well to the subtle textures and softness of pastels.
