Whitcomb often explores an idea with multiple thumb-
nail sketches. He speaks of them almost as friends. “If
we’re just not speaking to each other, I may put those
thumbnails aside,” he says. “It’s rarely a straight line; usu-
ally, it’s a meandering course.” And often, he has found
that one painting or concept will start feeding another.
Choosing from a half-dozen thumbnails, Whitcomb
painted a 12x12-inch color study (on page 26) for
Ascension before beginning the final painting. There’s no
rushing from the initial study to the final painting. Like
the scene he depicts, the landscape of ideas is rugged and,
at times, seemingly inaccessible.OFF TRAIL IN WILD PLACES
“I don’t teach workshops in pastel. I don’t know how I’d go
about teaching it,” Whitcomb states with matter-of-fact
bluntness. “I don’t really know what I do. I swear, every
pastel I do is one giant experiment. I get about a third of
the way into it, and I think, ‘What were you thinking?’ ”
But through persistent experimentation, he finds a way.He may try something and then scrub it off and try some-
thing else. “It’s an exercise in frustration,” he says. “I must
have a masochistic side. I just want to go back for more!”
To clarify, the artist notes that he welcomes pastel and
watercolor painters into his workshops, but he demon-
strates in oil. “The basic principles of picture-making are
the same regardless of medium,” he says. “If something
goes south, it’s because you lost your concept, your draw-
ing. Or, maybe the values are too close, or there’s too much
contrast, or the color is muddy, or it’s got too many shapes.”THE DESTINATION
Whitcomb’s work is a testament to the power of simplicity.
It’s at the heart of his approach to painting. As he com-
poses, he’ll ask: “Can I reduce this to three shapes instead
of five?” Even in the seeming complexity of a forest inte-
rior, as depicted in Morning Lightshow (pages 28-29), he
achieves a distilled clarity. He has set a slice of warm light
against the vertical rhythm of darks. The composition is
tied together by a pair of foreground trees in transition32 Pastel Journal AUGUST 2019