Pastel Drawings & Paintings

(pastel on tiled paper)

I typically work from my own reference photos and this one I had divided with a grid. Looking at one part at a time, and drawing one paper tile at a time, I build the whole image from the composition of its parts. The process is meditative - it helps me see the subject and all the details, as abstracted shapes, light and dark, warm and cool.

(acrylic on canvas board, 22" x 28") 

While this mandala differs in subject from my landscapes and nature details, it was born by way of the same meditative process, one of mindful abstraction of a whole by its parts. The painting began with a central organically geometric shape and grew circling outwards with quadrilateral symmetry.