Pastels

28 x 34 cm (11 x 14 inches)

Newberry writes on his sales page:

Pastels is one of my most fun, complex, and innovative compositions. Many
years ago, while in my L.A. loft a collector asked me what I meant by hot and
cold colors and I showed him my pastel boxes divided into hot and cold colors.
For fun I tossed a hot magenta pastel nub into the "cool" box. 
The visual affect on me was almost an unbearable overload of color sensation.
Many artists love color for its own sake and can spend hours just looking and
the hundreds of colored pastels on offer at their art store. I thought it would
be conceptually fun to have the subject the soft Rembrandt pastels and paint
them in oil! I am extremely proud of the way I handled the unique color, form,
and spatial relationship of each and everyone of the pastels.

In the Retrospective, Newberry writes:

One of my smallest paintings (11" x 14") yet, surprisingly one of
the most monumental, is Pastels. The viewpoint is looking straight down
on the tiered pile of the two pastel boxes. The boxes, the wood surface they
rest on and the shadows are abstracted, fragmented angles. They rotate and
spiral upwards to make an organically balanced composition. The pastels are
strewn into heaps and separated by hues into a "blue" and a
"red" box. A solitary magenta red stick in the "blue" box
sets off an electric current. The uncanny depth and form of the boxes and
of each pastel creates a tactile realism. I have had whimsical pleasure
seeing friends, having mistakenly though that the pastels were real, touch the
painting.