Pastel floral painting of a pot of fading geraniums on a table.

Pastel floral painting   18  inches x 18 inches

I’m heading down south looking for some warm weather and it reminded me of the plants and flowers I love to paint. This floral pastel hits close to home. Ever year we buy potted geraniums to adorn our deck and every year, right around August, they start to loose their luster. I actually find them much more interesting when they are crumbling and on their way out, than I do when they are all perky and pristine. I really liked the close, cropped composition of this piece, and was especially taken with the bold stripes of the chair in the background.

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Terra Cotta Art Spectrum Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Watercolor landscape painting of the hills of Umbria viewed from the town of Assisi

Watercolor landscape painting   12 inches x 5 inches   SOLD

When I was at La Romita in Umbria, Italy, I brought along my usual Saunders Waterford watercolor paper. But I also brought along a few sheets of Yupo paper. Its helpful for me to switch back and forth between a traditional, absorbent substrate and a slick, non-absorbent one. I am easily bored and frustrated with one approach and moving to another paper sometimes opens up new possibilities.

The countryside of Umbria looks like a quilt of different patterns and I tried to capture a bit of that feeling in this watercolor landscape of Italy. With Yupo paper, you can push the colors around and even lift areas back to the pure white paper.

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Yupo
Medium: Da Vinci Watercolors

Pastel painitng of an artist at his easel.

Pastel painting 19 inches x 24 inches

Every once in a while, the model at our figure drawing session strikes a pose that I don’t want to draw. At our last class, the model folded herself into a little, compact ball, and I had a rear view. I’m sure better artists than I could have made it work, but from that view, she just looked like a potato to me. So I looked across the room and decide to paint a pastel portrait of a dedicated fellow artist, slaving away at his easel. I don’t think he had a clue that I was sketching him, and not the model. We only had 20 minutes, so it was a quick impression.

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Sepia Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel painting of a sunlit porch of an old house in Saline, Michigan.

Pastel paintings   25.5 inches x 12.5 inches

I know it’s weird, but painting architecture just “flips my switch.” I love the play of nature’s organic forms against man-made structures. It is especially fun to capture old homes when they are lit by sunlight that casts deep, interesting shadows. I created this pastel painting a few years ago. I’ve sold quite a few giclee prints of it, but the original is still looking for a good home…

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Art Spectrum Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel landscape painting of dramatic evening clouds

Pastel landscape painting   16  inches x 20 inches

When I first started working in pastel, I wanted immediate gratification. I thought I should be able to create the exact effect I wanted on the first pass. It took me a while to understand that pastel painting is an additive process that is dependent on multiple layers of pigment. I thought I would share some work-in-progress examples of my latest pastel landscape to show how the progress occurs. In these snapshots, you can see how I start with a colored paper which is the opposite (or complement) of the the colors that will appear in the final piece. Beginning with the darkest darks, I slowly add medium hues and then build toward the lightest lights.

As you can see, I am lovin playing with skyscapes!

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Burgundy Art Spectrum Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel cityscape painting of a tower in Sienna, Italy.

Pastel painting    9  inches x 19 inches

The thousands of towers that rise from the cities and countryside are iconic symbols of Italian architecture. They were used for protection, to create beauty and to establish the status of influential families in Italy. Each one is different and many of them are mini architectural masterpieces. I was especially drawn to this sunlit tower in Siena when I visited in 2006. This scene inspired a watercolor and this pastel painting of Italy.

I worked on a board painted with a rough primer to create texture on the piece.

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Illustration board with Terra Cotta Art Spectrum Primer
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel architecture painting of the interior of an Italian cathedral

Pastel paintings   12.5 inches x 25.5 inches

Although 2/3 of the work sold, I still have a few pastel paintings of Italy available from my show last fall at the River Gallery. This was my first exploration of cathedral architecture. It’s obviously a rendition of columns, arches and windows, but what I was really doing was playing with both reality and abstraction. I like to zoom in on interesting structural areas and reduce them to shapes, colors, light and shadow. And I especially like infusing different hues into the somewhat monochr0matic shades of beautiful Italian churches.

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Aubergine Art Spectrum Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel portrait painting of a young nude model laying on a blanket.

Pastel painting 19 inches x 23 inches

This is another 20-minute sketch from our figure drawing session last weekend. There are parts of this pastel portrait that I really like, and other areas that definitely need some work. But that’s part of the value of doing quick drawings from life. You don’t become TOO invested in them, and, with constant practice, you slowly learn to see and draw the human form with more assurance. And when you can draw a realistic body, you can draw just about anything! At least that is what I keep telling myself….

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Sepia Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel portrait of a young model.

Pastel painting 11 inches x 18 inches

Well, I kept my New Year’s resolution to start attending my nude figure drawing sessions again. I managed to pull my bottom out of bed on Saturday morning and show up for class. We had a wonderful model who I really connected with artistically. This class tends to have all short poses: 2-minute warm-ups, then 10-minute sketches, and finally the “long” poses of 20 minutes. You have to work fast, no time for in-depth pondering. Just paint what you see, and do it quickly. The colors on this pastel portrait are very strong, but I felt they really captured her vibrant, intense personna.

I reused a piece of Canson Mi-Tients paper with an old portrait on it that I wasn’t in love with. (If you look closely, you can see the ghost of  man on the left side.) One of my new goals is to discard pieces that I am not totally proud of. And since art supplies are so expensive, I love the idea of recycling them and creating new art!

This artwork was created with
Paper: Canson Mi-Tients Felt Grey Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels

Pastel landscape painting of a summer sky filled with cumulus clouds in Michigan.

Pastel paintings   18.5  inches x 15 inches

Ever since I was little I have kept my eyes to the skies and have reveled in the millions of compositions, colors and textures that happen there every day. It has always been a goal of mine to tackle some pastel landscapes where the focus is on clouds and light, not on the land below. This is my first large-scale studio attempt inspired from photos I took last summer when I was painting en plein air. I learned a lot on this one and plan on learning more in the sky studies to come!

This artwork was created with:
Paper: Burgundy Art Spectrum Pastel Paper
Medium: Rembrandt Pastels and Sennelier Pastels