I discovered oil pastels while studying art in college. I don’t know why I picked them up in the first place, and I remember being frustrated with them in the beginning. One of my early attempts was a ballerina whose face looked like that of an ape, sending my professors into spasms of laughter. It’s a painful memory I’ve probably never shared publicly until now.
In spite of that failure, I kept at it, and I found that if I used a textured board and kept my work large, strikingly colorful portraits began to emerge from the background. The pastels were so intense that I had to mix the colors on the surface of the painting. I’ve found that not having the exact skin colors of pastels forced me to used a mixture of colors that became magic for me, and I developed my own style of portraits using oil pastels. I thought you might enjoy seeing an earlier stage of the work, along with the finished piece.
