I did a few more pastel paintings today to keep on fooling around with ideas for things to show the kids this Wednesday. It’s been pretty enjoyable playing with the oil pastels. I can’t draw with them the way I normally draw with other tools which has forced me to make shapes that are more loose than I’d likely choose with other media.

I don’t think I’m a pastel convert, but I do think I’ll do some more work with these— especially when I’m not in the mood to get out brushes, or when I don’t have the time. They are a very cool tool to have as an option, and since I have my easel all ready to go for some plain air work (I’ve been denied outside painting because it’s too cold to really enjoy it, even if it is warm enough to use water without having to mix it with alcohol as James Gurney shows in one of his million videos on painting.), I am thinking about bringing these out with me to do some work when it’s not so hot that the pastels will melt. There’s always something to complain about; my life is sooo hard. Waaaaaa!

So anyway. Here’s a baby chick smelling a flower I painted this morning. It’s Easter Sunday and I although I’ve never seen this happen before, I wanted to see it; so I painted it. Problem solved.

I don’t care too much for the flowers in this one, but once the color was down I just committed and am going to move on. It was really hard not to get in there and start fiddling with stuff once I got to this point. But I think this turned out the way I needed it to.