I paint impressionist landscapes using pastel.

I chose pastel because it was as close as I could get to working with pure pigment. As an artist, one of my goals is produce brilliant color that resonates on the canvas. The purer the pigment, the clearer and more brilliant the color will be. Pastel is actually composed of pure pigment combined with just enough filler to hold it together

For many years, critics of pastel believed that it lacked permanence. One glance at Degas’ dancers or Mary Cassatt’s Mother and child paintings and it is immediately evident that pastel will stand the test of time. Over the last ten years, pastel has experienced a renaissance of popularity in this country. Acid free papers along with highest quality pastels make it a medium that will certainly be vivid, brilliant and clear in 300 years.

I begin a painting with an undercoat of watercolor or diluted acrylic paint. I then use many layers of pastel in each painting. I find that green grass with an undercoat of rich magenta, orange and yellow produces a grass that shimmers, glows and excites. I paint almost exclusively on Kitty Wallis sanded pastel paper. I find that this paper is tough enough to handle layer after layer of pigment. I use many different brands of pastels – Rembrandt, Sennelier, and Unison, Dine Townsend being the most prevalent.

I employ a technique similar to pointilism only I use much larger notes of colors than the traditional “points” of color employed by artists such as Seurat. I am always working to portray the way color changes in the landscape when the light changes. This phenomenon is what keeps me so enthralled with the landscape.

I have been most influenced by the Impressionists as well as Charles Hawthorne, Henry Hensche and the Cape Cod School of Art.