San Francisco Bay - in Pastel

Eight years ago, in early 2002, my father and I spent one morning drawing a satellite map. Using pastel crayons.


It was the new year, just after Christmas, and I'd received a book from my paternal grandparents called 'Mapping the World' by Nathaniel Harris. I was highly into maps at the time. Using the book, we colored a satellite photo of the San Francisco Bay Area.


We produced a good effort:

San Francisco Bay Area, pastel, Justin Campbell

San Francisco Bay Area, pastel, Robert Bissett

Both images were drawn on January 5th, 2002. I was ten years old at the time. Both pictures tend to represent the area as how it looked prior to when the city developed over it; both pictures have greenery and marsh, cliffs and rocky areas, mountains and dirt hills.

You can get a wide-ranging variety using pastel crayons because they're very easy to manipulate on paper; when we did these my father taught me the idea of smudging the color on the paper with one's thumb to mix it up. The result is a very diverse mixture of color and shade.

It's also interesting with the dynamic you can get from a satellite image - the wide range of color and the landscape.

For reference, here is what the area actually looks like:

Google Earth Image

I would have included what the image looked like in the book, but I can't scan a book due to copyright issues.

Isn't this an interesting perspective? Art and geography mixed together.

Justin Campbell

The Green Vase

Unfortunately we don't yet have a name or date for it, but it's the first of many paintings to be shown.

Oil on canvas, it's a depiction of a green vase positioned on a table in front of a window, through which battlements and a tower can be seen. An ocean can be viewed in the distance, suggesting this is a sea-side city in medieval times perhaps.

Painting by Robert Bissett

We have Launched

Welcome to the Gamma-Ray Productions Art Blog!


This is a webpage to showcase the paintings and artwork of Robert Bissett, an impressionist painter. So far the premise is to showcase the paintings themselves.


"Gamma-Ray Productions" is a title that has long been used by Bissett and colleagues. It is used as an umbrella under which all artwork is produced. At one point it was the name of an art gallery owned by Bissett and colleagues on Somerset Street near Chinatwon, a gallery that showcased the paintings of local artists.


As this grows, it will of course become more complex and more areas of note shall be added on, such as any future art exhibitions, showcases, etc. etc.


For now, paintings are what this offers. Enjoy, and we hope it will in the future be a cool place to exhibit art.


Justin Campbell, creator of this site and son of the painter