Q: This is a show made up entirely of pastel paintings.  Have you ever had a show of only pastel pieces?  

 

A: Normally it’s a mixture of oils and pastels, but this is the first one for just pastels.

 

Q: What is it that makes the jump back and forth between pastels and oils an easy transition:

 

A: Sometimes, I just want a larger expanse in a landscape piece, and that’s when I choose oil on canvas. Miller Road, the winter pastel scene in the show,  is the largest pastel piece I’ve done.  With pastels, you get into all the issues with framing, so if I want to get a lot larger, like 4 x 5 feet….or maybe I want to do a 5 ft wide landscape and 2 ft. tall…that just lends itself to canvas and oils.  

 

Q:  Because the framing is such a bear for something on paper that size? 

 

A. Yes, the framing is so costly and unwieldy for something that size on paper.

 

The other thing I like about using pastels is there are 4 pieces here which are about 9 x 12″ and I can do that ‘en plein air’.  I’ve tried oils in plein air and I’ve just made an ungodly mess…I get the paint everywhere! My clothes….the car…everywhere!

 

I have a boat called a Poke Boat with a great open cockpit, so I can pack my art supplies, dog, picnic and go paddling down the river or in a lake and it’s very stable.  I have a couple of paintings I did that way.

 

Q: Please explain the reason pastel pieces are called ‘paintings’.

 

A.  I have trouble with that term…paintings.  There’s a pastel magazine and many organizations in the U.S., including a national organization and they all refer to them as paintings. Personally, I feel like it’s drawing with color.  Why not call them pastels…instead of paintings?  

 

The build up of layers of color is similar to painting, but the technique is so much different.

Typically people start off with harder pastels for the first layer….because they go down thinner and they don’t fill the paper.  I use a paper that’s like sandpaper and if you use the real buttery soft pastels right away, it fills the tooth of the paper and the paper can’t hold the successive layers of pastel.

There are a couple of pastels I like here where they are really textured areas….that certainly seems like painting more than drawing.

For instance, Along Miller Road, the winter scene has a base layer of the pastel ground…an acrylic paint with grit in it. With pastels, you can paint on an archival substrate and get texture…..also Autumn in the Canadian Rockies and Vermillion Lakes, Banff National Park.  The pastel ground on the substrate adds extra texture and it will grab those final layers of soft pastel.  The textured surface allows the pastel to adhere to it.

 

Q:  How long have you been doing pastels and how did you get into it?

 

A.  Maybe about 15 years…and I think I picked it up because I’ve always liked to draw. There’s something so gratifying about this beautiful range of color and texture that you can buy….you can  mix the colors on the page, of course, but you can also reach and get a close color of yellow, or blue, say.  The immediacy of using the pastel…..there’s no tool between you and the media…your hand IS the tool. 

 

Q:  Do you have a specific piece you want to tell us about? 

A:  Evening sky:

I took a few photos and was to taken with the colors!  At night the sky will often have a turquoise effect to it.  The photos were really complicated and I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the information in the photograph…so I put it away for a few weeks and thought about it.  I realized I didn’t want all the information and I just wanted the color of that sky.  

 

Q:  What kinds of safety precautions do you have to take because of the particulates in pastels? 

 

A:  Sometimes I take a brush and take the piece outside and brush off excess.  I’m in the process of looking at that issue.

 

Q:  Tell me a bit about the framing of your pieces.

 

A:  I feel strongly about using archival materials to frame the work…and museum glass which cuts the reflections and protects from UV rays, so that if someone buys a piece, it the colors and mat board will stay true and it will be, essentially, something that will be around for lifetimes.