Famous Last Words

In class one time a student asked me how professional artists use oil pastels. I said "they don't" and laughed. A few weeks later I went to Denmark and fell in love with oil pastels.

I'd bought them for my daughter. She and I spent many hours drawing around the island of Møn in Denmark. I loved the speed, the marks, the colors, and especially the limitation of the colors. There was something really appealing about trying to boil everything down to 18 colors.

Here Møns Klint, the chalk cliffs.


The sea along the cliffs.



Piles of seaweed collected along the base of the cliffs.


We sat for a while drawing these cows and their calves until I started to wonder if they might get annoyed with us and push us off the cliff.


And here, piles of firewood against the neighbor's house which we could see from our kitchen window.