First Post -- Why am I Doing This?

I have been "toying" with pastels since I retired the summer of 2011.  I say "toying" because, though I have invested in materials and lessons with many fine artists, I have never made my time in the studio a regular practice.  In part, this has been about not knowing what to do once I got there.

I know my drawing skills need improvement.  I've taken to sketching people while sitting in  church and attending life drawing opportunities in my community.  Though I've seen improvement over my initial nonexistent skills, I still have a very long way to go.

I was drawn to pastels because of the joy of immediate color.  I still love that medium, but I find myself drawn to acrylics because of their flexibility to use with collage and other media and they do not require framing under glass.  I like much of the abstract or abstracted reality style art that I see with acrylics.

Still, I hesitate to invest in new materials and don't want to clutter my space with tools and supplies required for working in another medium.

For the time being, I've decided to stay with acrylics and get more serious with my studio time.  I also invested in a series of lessons with Marla Baggetta, whose loose landscapes I enjoy.  Starting in April, I will also be going into Atlanta each week for lessons with Margaret Dyer.  I'm more satisfied with the work I do in Margaret's classes than with any other teacher.  She really challenges my ability to draw to scale and I love the challenge of painting the figure.

I was reasonably happy with the result from the first lesson from Marla, though I went in later and adjusted the horizon line.  I experimented with cropping the image from 9x12 to 8x10 and even a vertical 5x7.  I liked the cropped versions better.

Lesson #1 from Marla Baggetta