I have been interested in the fine arts since the late 1960s and began painting while in the US Navy. I initially used acrylics and later changed to watercolors. My subject matter was primarily landscapes and evolved to sharp-focus still lifes and portraiture of animals and birds using airbrush. I was a past member and president of the Baltimore Watercolor Society in 1985 and a past member of the Salmagundi Club, America’s oldest art club, in New York City, and Artists Equity in Baltimore. A hiatus found me concentrating on music, essentially guitar and banjo. However, recently, the old spark was reignited, and I felt the need to get back into painting once again. This time, I wanted to try something completely different, and I dove into soft pastels. The figurative pastel dust storm in my studio was most challenging and rewarding. My subject matter took another turn, and I have found the pastel medium very appropriate for expressing dramatic skies and seascape impressions. The pastel medium presented all sorts of new opportunities to manually manipulate the colors, and I use my fingers, hands, sponges, and even pipe insulation to coax my pastel smudges into representing nature at its finest or at its most intimidating behavior. I am now a Signature member of the Philadelphia Pastel Society. Recent shows and exhibitions of my pastel paintings: Philadelphia Pastel Society: 2022 Spring Fling Show 2023 Spring Members Online Show National PPS Juried Shows: 2022, 2024, 2025, 2026 PPS Members Show 2026 PPS Signature Members Show 2026 Ludington Library Shows: 2022, 2023, 2024 Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Gallery Exhibit: Gaia In Reverence to Earth, 2026 Daylesford Abbey Art Gala: 2025, 2026 Unionville Art Gala: 2025, 2026 Penn Medicine, Radnor: 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 The Perlman Medical Center in Philadelphia: 2025 If you would like more information about any of these pastels or others available at my studio, just reach out to my contact information below. Thank you for looking. Karl Fehrenbach karlspastels@gmail.com