Pastels - Class #4

We were supposed to bring a picture of something to copy. I brought my wolf and tiger calendars again, with the intention of drawing more critters. However, I decided at the last minute to try flowers again before "giving up," and selected a picture of an orchid from the stuff the instructor brought to the class.

It went fairly well. Other people were more impressed by it than I was, but I thought it was going okay. This was another case of people thinking that I was done before I did...I would have done a little more to it. This was the first piece that I finished since that first bowl of fruit. Unfortunately, I created a ludicrous amount of blue and purple chalk dust while coloring the background, and probably ruined one of my favorite pairs of jeans, which I was stupid enough to wear to the class. Bleh.

I was encouraged again to enter stuff into the student art show, but I'm resisting. I'd have to frame things and decide which of them I wanted to try to sell, and for how much. In addition to the framing costs, it's something like $5 for every piece you put in. I can just imagine paying to have everything framed and entered, and then not sell any of them. I don't think I've got anything sale-worthy that I actually want to sell...except maybe the orchid from this class, though I'm still not sure anyone would want to buy it. I guess we'll see if I generate anything else between now and the show.

Evening of reading, and return of the fireflies

I was working on artwork on the 'puter on Wednesday when the thunder and lightning rolled in. Annoyed, I went off to find something else to do for a while until I could safely power things up again. I finally decided to start rereading The Hero and the Crown, which I'd been meaning to do since I finished Sunshine. By the time the thunder seemed completely gone, I was so far into the book that I figured I may as well just finish it, but I either misjudged how long it had taken me to read the first 2/3, or I misjudged what time it was, because I was more than a little distressed to finish at about 4:00 AM. Oops. It was fun to re-read, though. Many things were familiar and came back to me, and others came straight out of nowhere and made me say "What the heck? I don't remember that!"

Also, late Tuesday night I spotted my first firefly of the year. It must have been very confused to be out at 1:43 AM or whatever time it was...they usually come out in the evening just as its getting dark.

Gah, color!

I decided to play with color again for the latest Exalted piece. Since fire-aspected Dragon Blooded have dark red skin, I thought this would be a fun time to depart from black and white. Unfortunately, I screwed up on the face, since if her head is tipped forward for a furious glare, her chin should be less visible, but I'm still reasonably happy with this one. I think I at least managed to capture the expression I was after. Peleps Valiaru, Realm Naval Officer.