The Beauty of Pastels by Wanda Dehan

Artist’s bio

Wanda Snader Dehan lives and enjoys painting in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This is her first solo show. She primarily works with soft pastels but also uses mixed media and gouache.

Wanda began drawing in mid-life during her first summer break in law school as an antidote to reading countless legal cases. After law school graduation, she began taking art classes with exploration of various media. She gravitated towards using pastels as she loved the luscious and vibrant colors of the pastel sticks and the ease of painting with them as her schedule allowed.

Upon retirement in late 2020, Wanda turned her full focus to art. One of her paintings, a mustard field painted in the pointillism style, was an accepted entry into the juried 2021 UART online pastel competition. Wanda plans to further explore pointillism in future works.

Artist’s statement

In this collection, I’ve focused on landscapes, but also on the form of pears and to a lesser extent, other simple shapes, to capture the beauty of pastels.

The pigment found in pastels is the same pigment found in both oil and watercolor paints, but with only a small amount of binder to hold the pigment together. Thus, painting with pastels is almost like painting with pure pigment.

My reason for making art is to blend the beauty of the medium with the beauty of the subject matter, whether it is nature, flowers or a simple object.