Oil Pastel
Cherry Pagoda (2026)
Oil pastel on canvas panel
16x20
Private collection
Some subjects choose you. I've returned to the Patterson Park Pagoda again and again: on film, on digital, in medium format, in oils with a palette knife, in watercolor, in gouache. Each time it gives me something different. This time, surrounded by cherry blossoms and rendered in oil pastels, it gave me warmth and explosion and light. A familiar landmark seen, once again, for the first time.
Añoranza (2026)
Oil pastel on canvas panel
16x20
Available
Añoranza means something deeper than homesickness, something closer to an ache. Every Maryland winter sends me back: sun-soaked beaches, a sky so blue it feels like a physical thing, lying flat on my back watching the world go quiet above me.
Oil pastel is the right medium for this kind of memory. You can't paint with it so much as press it in. That tactile resistance is exactly how sense-memory works. You don't think your way back to a place. You feel your way there.
Pleasant Valley (2026)
Oil pastel on canvas panel
16x20
Available
A backyard in full spring bloom. Pink blossoms against weathered wood, green lawn, open sky. The kind of scene that only reveals itself when you've finally stopped rushing. This study is a small portrait of a place where I learned to welcome solitude.
Still Life #1 (2026)
Oil pastel on paper
18x12
Available
A potted plant, a blue backdrop, a room full of artists. Sometimes the most ordinary subjects reveal the most when you commit to really seeing them. The first in an ongoing still life series with a Baltimore painting group.
Still Life #2A (2026)
Oil pastel on panel
8x10
Available
A skull, a mug, a vessel that refuses to be ignored. This still life session carries the quiet weight of the vanitas tradition. What endures? What catches the light?
Still Life #2B (2026)
Oil pastel on panel
8x10
Available
Embers (2023)
Oil pastel on black paper
8x10
Personal collection
A companion to Set Ablaze, this study moves closer. Form gives way to gesture. What remains is warmth, motion, and the brief, bright arc of a spark finding the dark.
Set Ablaze (2023)
Oil pastel on black paper
8x10
Personal collection
A study on fire and mood. Black paper demands that you earn every bit of light, and fire is light in its most unpredictable form. This piece is as much about the feeling of standing near a fire at night as it is about capturing one.