Pastel and Oil paintings

This is the pastel I worked on this week. It's from a photo of my sister's front courtyard in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, just outside of Albuquerque. The rocks used for the wall are huge uneven slabs of stone in the most beautiful reds and browns. It's not finished....yet.

Here is the portrait of my grandaughter which really needs my attention. It will be nice to finish this as the photo I'm working from is from 2 years ago. You can see what I mean by "all eye sockets and grimace".

Fred's class was really fun tonight. We painted a still life which was very, very girly--a pink satin high heel shoe, a jewelry box with some beads draped out of it, and a wine bottle for height. We joked around a lot, because the still life was so feminine looking, and pink. My husband, Chuck, who is also taking Fred's class, tends to talk to himself while painting....constantly. So now every member of the class has started talking to themselves while painting. At one point Debbie said to him, "you just gave us a blow by blow account of how you did that", and I burst into laughter....."don't you mean play by play?" I replied while trying not to fall off of my chair. Well, I guess you had to be there.

Next week I think we're going to try a portrait done in Fred's impressionistic style. That ought to be a lot of fun too.