"Cherry Pagoda" (2026)
Oil pastels 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.
Oil pastels 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.
"Pleasant Valley"
Oil pastels on canvas panel
16x20
Oil pastels 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.
"Añoranza" (2026)
Oil pastel on canvas panel
16x20
Oil pastel on canvas panel
16x20
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.
Still Life #2A (2026)
Oil pastel on panel
8x10
Oil pastel on panel
8x10
A skull, a mug, a vessel that refuses to be ignored. This still life session carries the quiet weight of the vanitas tradition — objects gathered not just to be painted, but to ask something of the viewer. What endures? What catches the light?
Still Life #2B (2026)
Oil pastel on panel
8x10
Oil pastel on panel
8x10
Still Life #1 (2026)
Oil pastel on watercolor paper
18x12
Oil pastel on watercolor paper
18x12
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.
"Set Ablaze" (2023)
Oil pastel on black paper
Oil pastel on black paper
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.
"Embers" (2023)
Oil Pastel on Black Paper
Oil Pastel on Black Paper
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.
"Lunch Break at the Park" (2024)
Oil pastel on paper
Oil pastel on paper
A one-hour lunchbreak study painted on Fed Hill on a warm summer day. I took my shoes off, sat on the grass, and the abandoned shoes became a quiet story of rest.
"The Boy Discovers Music" (2024)
Oil Pastel on Paper
Oil Pastel on Paper
A quick oil-pastel sketch that freezes a small, electric moment: my kid meeting the keyboard for the first time. I worked fast to catch his posture and the look on his face. Those tiny, turning thoughts. The pastels hold the immediacy of the encounter, with direct marks and a limited palette that emphasize gesture and curiosity.
"Racimo" (2024)
Oil Pastel on black paper
This oil-pastel study on black paper remembers the placitas of Puerto Rico. I focused on the hanging plantain bunches and the way they sat against the dark background. The piece aims to hold the memory of walking the market with my parents.
Oil Pastel on black paper
This oil-pastel study on black paper remembers the placitas of Puerto Rico. I focused on the hanging plantain bunches and the way they sat against the dark background. The piece aims to hold the memory of walking the market with my parents.