Finished!

Just wanted to quickly post the photo of the pastel of Degas’ “Green Dancers”. I finished it tonight. I enjoyed working on the picture a lot, but I realized somewhere along the way that I bit off a little more than I wanted to chew. Surprisingly there were a lot more details than I realized. The tiny orange ballerinas were a lot harder to do and took a lot more time than the two skirts and the dancer in the foreground. The little details on the tutu were murderous as well.

We had a lovely day off today, entertaining Dione e Fausto (the pastor and his wife who preceeded us at First Baptist. They work at the Baptist World Alliance in DC, but were here for a wedding) for a brunch. It was nice to talk and share. So much to talk about!!!

I decided totally take the rest of the day off and finish the picture, so that’s just what a did. Some four hours later I was able to finish it.

Now I am reading “COLORS”, a book on color theory, in order to prepare myself for mixing colors and working in acrylic paints. That will come in March and I am excited about learning something new. My task for the rest of this month is finishing João’s portrait. I do love pastels. They just feel wonderful in your hands and the colors come off on the paper just like they look in your hand. It is such a sensation to see those vibrant, luminous colors flowing onto the paper. They are very forgiving as well, as you can just paint right over any mistake.

While I feel confident that I am learning to deal with pastels and watercolors, I realize more and more that my drawing skills are very limited and I need to concentrate on improving in that area. There are only so many hours available for art, so I’ll just have to be patient and take any small improvements that I can.