Jean Hirons @ NIH - beautiful pastels

I have been an artist most of my life, but only "professionally" since 2003 when I took early retirement from the Library of Congress to pursue pastel painting full time. Pastel has been my passion for the past 15 years and I am completely devoted to the medium. I teach the pastel course at the Rockville Campus of Montgomery College and this October will become president of the Maryland Pastel Society. I am also a member of Creative Partners Gallery in Bethesda.

My subject matter is the landscape. Since growing up in coastal Massachusetts, I have had a strong love for the natural environment. I am definitely "called" to paint what I see around me, whether it be here in Maryland, in Massachusetts, or places further afield where my husband and I have visited. I love finding compositions of strong shapes, values and color that mountains, prairie, and seaside afford. I paint both on site and from photographs in my studio. When I paint on site, I am more true to the natural environment; in the studio I feel freer to play with color and composition. Both forms of painting, I feel, are equally valid and critical to a successful landscape painter.

I have chosen pastel as my medium because it is the most immediate, brilliant, and permanent artist’s medium available. Working from sticks of pure pigment, I can create pictures with as much or as little detail as I desire. I have a wide assortment of the best pastels currently available, all lightfast. I also take advantage of the best of pastel surfaces. The paintings in this show use two surfaces. The 12 x 18s are painted on Wallis museum grade sanded paper. The 18 x 24’s are painted on boards with a surface I prepared. All are archival.

I paint what is beautiful and pleasing to my eye. My paintings are not political or message-driven, but are based instead on the "rules" of composition and color theory. I believe that these paintings will have enduring value as images of beauty and integrity.