Orange

I started my pastel class last Thursday- with the help of my INCREDIBLE husband, as mentioned before- and am now re-familiarizing myself with the techniques and process. It feels a bit awkward. But, I took advantage of the unanticipated extra 20 minutes I had this morning and jumped in to the homework assignment. We were each given a paper bag with instructions to feel inside, smell, notice and picture what we were experiencing without looking. We could then take out the item, examine it further, and then render it in pastels. I set up the still life above on Thursday afternoon, and it languished on my desk all weekend. I kind of half-heartedly started the wooden apple, but the process felt a little weird and was quite unsatisfactory. So it sat and taunted me for 3 days. When I found myself with the extra few minutes this morning, I jumped in and gave everything a minimum of a once-over, so that when I get back to it (likely tomorrow, although I'm already more excited about working on it so maybe I'll find some time tonight), I'll at least have less white paper staring at me. I have already discovered that I don't have a great selection of orange pastels, and it may behoove me to see if I can get one or two more hues in the next day or two. On the other hand, I've photographed the still life a couple of times in order to get a little different perspective, and it's been elucidating. There's not as much true orange as one might imagine in an orange on blue cloth next to red apples and well lit from above.