I am a 53 year old family therapist. I returned to painting a year after my wife died in 2006; her loss devastated me and represented the end of my life as I knew it.
I learned how to transform a line drawing into color by watching her paint over many years. After her death I found my interest in painting had returned. It became my way of integrating her in my life while rekindling an old interest.
I began experimenting with pastels first as a drawing medium and then as a painting one. Working with pastels allowed me to discover how light and dark collaborate to give form and transform colour, I have discovered how the interplay between light and dark gives shape to objects. It’s the contrast between the two that defines how we see things.
I work primarily with pastels and oils and my usual subject is the landscape. Specifically, I try to capture how sunlight paints the forest and trees. Darkness is always present lurking in the shadows and defining the shapes under my brush.
The visual expression I find in painting symbolizes my discovery that life goes on despite loss. It shows how my life has become about capturing the colour of light – and no longer about escaping the darkness of my night.
My painting, which may have started as a way of filling the emptiness of a great loss has become my way of looking at the world and communicating to others what I still find precious in life.
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You will receive in the mail a signed limited edition print with a certificate of authenticity from marcoRmedia and instructions on the proper care of archival papers. This will be sent to you within a month of our receiving your order via COD.
The prints produced on archival papers by marcoRmedia are of museum quality. for more information visit www.marcoRmedia.com
When most people they think of painting they think of acrylic, oils or watercolor. Yet, pastels have a long
history as a painting medium unbeknownst to the general population. Most people would be surprised to
hear that many of Degas' most well known works are pastel on paper. He was a strong advocate for the
medium.
But he was not the first, pastels goes as far back as the 15th century, Rosalba Careira popularized the use
of pastels by using it as her main painting medium.
She was followed by Chardin and Quentin de La Tour who both
used it interchangeably with their works in oil.
This self-portrait by Quentin de La Tour painted in 1751 on paper
pastels shows the skill of the painter but also the versatility of the
medium for portrait painting.
Chardin relinquished the
use
pastel in response to the
growing demand for oil
paintings. In this self-
portrait, completed in 1771
Chardin shows the wide
range of colours available Quentin de La Tour 1751 pastel on paper
in
pastels to paint the
subtleties of this illuminated visage. This shows how well suited
medium is to producing a painted picture that is not simply a
coloured drawing.
As
oils became more popular, pastels became less so for a period of
100 Chardin 1771 pastel on paper
years. In was only in the 18th century,
artists such as Jean Francois Millet and Odilon Redon started using pastels in their work. However, it is
Degas who most popularized the use of pastels as a painting medium. He used it for many painting many
scenes of bathers.
While these pictures are well known to most people who enjoy Degas'
few are aware that they are produced with pastels.
On this side of the ocean, Mary Cassatt and Whistler were the first to
this enjoyment for pastel to America in the late 1800's . Since then the
enjoyment of this medium has grown with many artist painting
exclusively in pastel. Today the US boasts quite a number of artist who
specialize in painting with pastel. Pastel Societies have proliferated
throughout the US. Three such groups exist in Canada
Albert Handel and Richard McKinley both have devoted their artistic
careers to the development of pastel painting as an art form.
