Category Archives: Bolivianos

Q: What’s on the easel today?

Work in progress


A: I am working on a small 26” x 20” pastel painting called, “Harbinger” that, for once, is coming together rather quickly.

Comments are welcome!

Start/Finish of “Maestro,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26” x 20”

Start

Finish


Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

A: This is a preliminary charcoal drawing for my next “Bolivianos” painting.

Comments are welcome!

Q: How large is your collection of Mexican folk art objects?

Part of my collection

A: I began collecting these figures in the early 1990s.I haven’t counted them, but my guess is that I have amassed around 200 pieces of various sizes. This includes some Guatemalan figures. I went to Guatemala in 2009 and 2010.Since I divide my time between a house in Alexandria, VA, an apartment in Manhattan, and a studio in Chelsea, a portion of my folk art collection resides in each of these places.

Since 2017 I have been creating pastel paintings in the “Bolivianos” series, which exclusively use my photographs of Bolivian Carnival masks as source material. Occasionally, I will add one of my smaller Mexican or Guatemalan figures to improve and enrich a painting’s composition. Otherwise, my Mexican collection sits gathering dust. My thinking and my ideas, not to mention my travels, have evolved and just naturally moved on with time.

Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

“Apparition,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38”

A: “Apparition,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38,” awaits some finishing touches.

Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

Work in progress

A: This is my second day working on a new “Bolivianos” pastel painting. Next I will layer black Rembrandt soft pastels for the background. It usually takes 4 or 5 layers just to cover the 400 grit sandpaper.

Comments are welcome!

Start/Finish of “Narcissist,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 20” x 26”

Start

Finished

Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

Work in progress

A: This is the latest progress on “Apparition,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38”.

Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

Work in progress


A: I’m making slow progress on “Apparition,” 58” x 38,” soft pastel on sandpaper. There is still plenty of work to be done on the details.

Comments are welcome!

Q: What’s on the easel today?

Nearly finished!


A: I’m finishing up “Maestro,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26” x 20”.

Comments are welcome!