Tag Archives: original pastels

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New Original Pastels for 2025

An addendum to New original Pastels for 2025- I am a lover and follower of nature-Artbygordon is a celebration of the beauty and mystery-in recent weeks, I am realizing my purpose in creating these pastel pieces.

Aspects I’ve learned about Pastels-

This is a large pastel of the Grand Canyon-it is on white paper but the beginning I was relying more on the memory- I was working on depth and colors but the contrast begins to blend in if you work over the image too much.

My next pastel in the works is a smaller pastel and on red paper-the brightness of the pastel will jump out of the red more and I will be more meticulous in going only once over an area.

The image of spring is more the ideas that I’m planning- the colors are vibrant and immediate-no overworking and blending in-very raw. I’m also planning on an ocean scene on blue or green.

Grand Canyon sketch in Pastel-artbygordon pastels 2025
Grand Canyon Study in Pastel
Spring 2025-Pastel on Paper
Spring pond pastel on paper-Artbygordon
  1. The less you work an image the better: Work from life and get the details together without working up the layers-the tooth of paper takes a certain amount of pastel and then it is hard to overlay color.
  2. Soft pastels can overlay paper that has been overworked: it just takes more work to perfect.
  3. Before you begin a pastel, have a plan: Know where the lights and darks will be and accurately capture how they react by going from life.

A New Series of Pastels 2024-2025

New original pastels for 2025 will be added to the Fine Art America site soon. A new direction in Pastels on paper for Artbygordon: A study of light and shadow. Previous studies in pastel were more for the scene, capturing often an imagined scene or something I wanted to convey of places I had been.

The approach now is more of capturing a technique and taking the approach to see how far I can get adding light to a subject. I want the viewer to look at the work and not understand where the light is coming from. Every time I think I have accomplished this technique, another idea comes to me and I start another pastel.

The images of the light are all from one area on Scenic Drive in Rowlett, Texas-the light on Lake Ray Hubbard in the morning lights up the lake and you can barely see because it’s so bright. This intense brightness is what I have worked on creating in the these pastels.

Inspiration for Isolating light-Scenic Drive Rowlett, Texas

I am in the process of reviewing pastel brands.  I’m reviewing on brilliance, permanence and ease of use-Ie Sloppy, clean, soft or too hard.
Check out my blog

 

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Original Pastels on Paper in the works

Original pastel on paper – I’ve been doing a lot of pastels on black strathmore, but there is something missing, the darkness makes the colors pop but the light from pastel on white creates a light that shows through. Each process has it’s own plus and minus.

The wren on a rain barrel is a painting from an idea that has been waiting for more then thirty years to be finished. The original was on a large dark underpainting that turned into an autumn scene.

Dark purple background where leaves were supposed to be falling on water instead became the backdrop for a forest and then a log in a small stream. The idea went into the redevelopment stage and  has been silent for many years.

Wren on rainbarrel - Original pastel on paper
Wren on rainbarrel – Original pastel on paper

The original idea, which didn’t include the wren, was how the ghosts of past autumns rise and fall beneath the surface of the water. It is how I started painting water, like the night sky there is something mysterious about the two different planes that react-the surface, the darkness beneath and the light above.

The next pastel is still a work in progress-it is capturing light on the water and how the sun appears bluish beneath the white but there is no ability to look directly at it, I wanted the viewer to feel the feeling of squinting the eyes to look at the scene.

I want the light to be tangible and almost adds another dimension of temperature to a flat plane. I am still in the process of working the darks against the lights.

Original Pastel of sun on water
Original Pastel of sun on water

Pet Portraits-original pastels on paper

The last pastel is something I want to do more of. I liked the dark brown beneath and how the two figures jump out of the background. I love the way portraits force perfection. There is no good enough, the image either resembles what you are seeing or it doesn’t.

My ability to see detail has improved and portraits are much faster than they have ever been with no initial sketching preceding the final image. Without the initial sketching for placement, it makes for a cleaner less overworked image.

A poem on the subject 

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SPORTING ART: ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS AND PASTELS FROM A KAYAK

kayakers
Paintings of kayakers

I am a kayaker, not the most agile one as you’ll see if you read the stories below. I love water, it’s what I paint and some of my best inspiration has been on the water in a kayak.

I enjoy painting the subtleties of water and how reflections change and become their own image while the depth beneath has it’s own intricacies.

This is what I love about painting water and why it has been a joy for me both through photography, oil painting, pastels on paper and writing.

These original paintings have already sold but I do commissions from photographs, etc. We can capture that moment and why you enjoy being out on the water, kayaking, surfing, etc.

Lake Texoma 2018

16×20 oil on canvas Lake Texoma 2018, from one of many trips to Lake Texoma.
Lake Texoma, oil painting on Canvas-Available for prints or for sale.16×20 standard 1/4 inch canvas. Painted in 2018. $600.00

This image of Lake Texoma was from a kayak-I enjoyed the colors and how you can see the bottom and the rich warm colors of the stones.

I am increasing my interest in finding light in the bleakest days. There is no time or place where the richness of light speaks to me than when it is unexpected.

Original oil on canvas-16×20 standard 1/4 inch thick canvas. for sale $600. Prints available on request.

Catamaran on Lake Ray Hubbard

Sail boat on Lake Ray Hubbard

Original oil painting of sail boat on Lake Ray Hubbard, 18×24 for sale-sporting art series-$900.00.

This painting is actually a remake from a pastel sketch from Sandy Hook New Jersey, I created this years earlier. I liked the orange and yellow and how it reacted with the cooler colors of the water.

This series of sailboats and water craft were a departure from previous more detailed work, I concentrated more on the colors and the movement of water as expressed with looser strokes.

The one thing that has never changed and will never change is my interest and passion for nature. It is my solace and keeps me grounded. I am planning on traveling much more in 2019.

Blog posts from kayaking trips.

Navarre Beach

I would usually be shooting this from the kayak but in this case, Read More

Kayak view

This is the first kayak trip of our road trip and at this point I am rethinking the whole idea. I can’t say it was wonderful. 
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Lake Texoma, Back on the water

The last time I kayaked was the first time in the Florida surf. I lost a rod, got dumped beneath a wave and remembered how awkward it can be when nature makes a fool out of you.
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Kayaking

How fast time flies, a year of selling insurance, a new car, a year of building an art and writing business and here we are out on the water again. It’s been two years since I’ve been out on the water and I wish I could say it was smooth sailing.

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