Pastel Paintings
Click on an image below to enlarge pastel paintings.
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Donna Aldrich
Donna Aldrich spent the last six years of public school living in Los Alamos, NM after ten years of travel in the Pacific with her Air Force family. She has lived in the southwest since 1967, and received a B.S. in art education from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. At that time she began painting and selling eggs with intricately painted scenes ranging from landscapes to interiors. Donna began teaching art in the public schools and she and her husband raised 2 daughters. She is now painting pastels of the places she has visited and scenes in New Mexico and Arizona that she is so familiar with. Traveling between Los Alamos and Flagstaff for so many years, gave her the desire to capture the beauty of the adobe buildings, gates, flowers and the history along Route 66.
Click on an image below to enlarge pastel paintings.
About Pastel Painting
From the Pastel Society of New Mexico
A particle of pastel pigment seen under a microscope resembles a diamond with many facets. This causes pastel paintings to reflect light like a prism. No other medium has the same power of color or stability. Properly framed, pastel paintings are one of the most permanent painting mediums.
The painting medium is created from the same pigments as those used in watercolor and oil paints; only the binder is different. Gum tragacanth is used to bind the pigments of pastels, while gum arabic binds the pigment for watercolors and linseed oil is the binder for oil paints.
Soft pastels are available in three forms: the round or square sticks, created with only enough binder to hold them together; the slimmer sticks, which are harder and created with more binder; and the pastel pencils, which have the most binder and are the hardest form of soft pastels.
Pastels may be applied to a multitude of supports, including various types of papers and cloth. Popular choices are sanded paper, boards coated with marble dust and rough finished rag paper, which is available in a wide variety of colors to complement or contrast with the painted image. The surface may be underpainted with acrylic, gouache, oil paint or watercolor. Each artist chooses his or her personal technique or style for the specific requirements of an individual painting.