Beginning a new pastel painting
A: I work on each pastel-on-sandpaper painting for approximately three months. I try to be in my studio 7 to 8 hours a day, five days a week.
I make thousands of creative decisions as I apply and layer soft pastels (I have thousands to choose from), blend them with my fingers, and mix new colors directly on the sandpaper. A finished piece consists of up to 30 layers of soft pastel.
My self-invented technique accounts for the vivid, intense color that often leads viewers of my originals to look very closely and ask, “What medium is this?” I believe I am pushing soft pastel to its limits, using it in ways that no other artist has done before.
Comments are welcome!
Filed under: An Artist's Life, Art Works in Progress, Black Paintings, Creative Process, Gods and Monsters, Inspiration, Mexico, New York, NY, Pastel Painting, Photography, Studio, Working methods Tagged: accounts, apply, approximately, artist, before, begin, believe, blend, choose, closely, colors, creative, decisions, directly, fingers, happens, intense, layer, leads, limits, look, make, medium, mix, originals, painting, pastel painting, pastel-on-sandpaper, pushing, sandpaper, self-invented, soft pastels, spoke, Studio, talk, technique, thousands, using, viewers, vivid, ways
