FAIRHOPE, Ala. — On Randy Moberg’s Web site is a blog illustrating the creation of a painting. He starts with strong colors but after several changes, finishes with a softer look.

“With oils,” Moberg explains, “once you lose those strong colors, they’re gone forever. The carrier in oils works against some colors more than others. That’s why I’m working in all these different mediums now, looking for the rich color that I would like to get sometimes.”

Randy Moberg grew up in Mobile and Weeks Bay. His father had a little fishing place on the water. Moberg was always drawing, but he started college studying engineering.

“I was the worst engineer in the U.S. Navy. I actually sent the ship to battle stations twice, accidentally, while working on the alarm system,” he said. “If you break the circuit, it automatically goes off. It took me two times to realize what was happening. The captain understood after that,” he said. “He knew if we were going to battle stations it was probably me working on the alarm system. I was going to continue my illustrious engineering career when I just fell into art.”

Fred Lawyer, an instructor at University of South Alabama urged him to take a drawing class.

“Lawyer was a wonderful teacher. I could finally do something I was good at,” Moberg laughed.

He paid his dues as a struggling artist, working with an ad agency, a department store, exhibiting at outdoor shows and offering occasional workshops.

He’s been commissioned for the last five years to create paintings for J.L. Sanders Restaurants.

“The first restaurant I did for them, I worked with the designer. She liked the paintings of musicians I was doing then from photographs I’d taken in New Orleans.”

Moberg said it’s easy to get pigeonholed by commissioned work, but he’s been allowed freedom to explore his creative ideas. Recently, he has worked in four different mediums: watercolors, oils, acrylics and pastels, sometimes combining all of them.

“Watercolor is a most unforgiving medium,” Moberg said. “You have to be more judicious. Oil, you can just scrape it off. But all art is hard. It’s just hard in different ways.”

Moberg will be at Lyons Share Custom Frame and Gallery in Fairhope on two Saturdays between now and Christmas creating pastel portrait drawings.

The artwork is produced with sticks of dry pigment, embedding color on the paper or canvas. “Pastel is pure color,” Moberg said.

Pastel artwork from the 16th Century exists today and looks as fresh as the day it was painted.

Moberg’s pastel drawings are alive with color and light. “Portraits, my way,” he smiles. “If I like it, they’ll like it.”

Moberg defines his art as abstract, but “I am definitely a colorist,” he said. “It brings out emotions, it makes me feel things I otherwise might not feel. I’m drawn to that and the designing of shapes. It intrigues me and I could sit and do it forever.”

Moberg said he paints whatever interests him. A few years ago he traveled to France and Italy for a couple of months. “It was fun! It gave me some new things to think about. I started out in Paris, and wound up on the Amalfi coast in southern Italy.”

Moberg was fascinated by the subject matter he found in Italy. “Light reflects off old buildings and they’re made of real earth things. The paint is hundreds of years old and it’s chipped away. You go in between those buildings and the light is bouncing around off of those things,” he said enthusiastically. “That was my dream to go over there and paint.”

Moberg admires and studies the work of many contemporary artists, including that of Fairhope resident and internationally known watercolor artist, Don Andrews. “I saw his book [Interpreting the Figure in Watercolor] when I was coming out of school and he was doing such a great thing with the figure. I was working with watercolors, and I thought, that’s what I want to do!”

Moberg will put his experience and talent to work on Saturday, Dec. 8 and 15 at Lyons Share, 330 De La Mare Ave. in Fairhope. Individuals who sit for a pastel drawing must be age 7 or older and allow one hour for the sitting. The cost is $200. To reserve a time slot, call Lyon’s Share at 928-2507.