Daniel Patrick Shay
Illustrator, painter, pastel artist, portrait artist,
museum model maker
Croton on the Hudson, New York 

Caught between a land of make believe and the realities of growing up,"Once Upon a Time" portrays a young girl's reflection into a word of the unknown. both innocent and defiant, she gazes into the future while holding onto the past.
Beginning with a line drawing of vine charcoal to lay down the foundation and define the subject; I continued with a combination of board deliberate strokes of pastel followed by the finer lighter strokes layered one over the other, blending and building tone as I worked. Once Upon a Time is rendered on a ground of Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper using a combination of Nu-Pastel, Rembrandt and Sennelier pastels.

I have loved pastel since I was a young boy. My parents bought me my first set of Prang Pastellos, 24 different sticks of brightly colored hues and values manufactured by the American Crayon Company. My bedroom became my studio. the floor was my easel. it was on that floor that I discovered early in my life the excitement of portraiture and the emotions that I felt when painting the human figure.\

Some thirty years later after having enjoyed professional careers in both art and photography, I still hold that passion for pastel and the rendering of the human form. My art now takes me into a world of visual storytelling, and examination of individual lives, interpreting them through the voice of pastel.

Selected Group Exhibitions

The Saltbox and Clubhouse Galleries,CPS National "Renaissance in Pastel", West Hartford, CT. October 2005

The Flinn Gallery, Greenwich CT. August 2005\

Newington-Cropsey Foundation Gallery of Art, Hastings-on- the- Hudson, NY
May 2005

the Ridgewood Art Institute, CAA National Exhibition, Ridgewood, NJ. March 2005

Education
The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Painting Concentration.

New York State University College of Geneseo, Geneseo, NY Studio Fine Arts