Pastel Pansy's

I 'doodled' this Pastel of the pansy's I shared with you a little while back. I know I said I was going to paint them in watercolour, but I got a little sampler of pastels in the mail, and wanted to play with them - and those flowers were right there!

On my easel, I have found working upright contains the dust from
the pastels a little better.

Here are some close-ups of the painting, I love how to can see the layers and texture of the pastels. I think a lot of people think that you do not get very much texture, but it's there!

Here is one small box of the 'sampler' I made, just to give you an example of how wonderful these little gems look, and how different they all look.

 I essentially went to DickBlick.com and purchased one or two of the brands that I have heard good things about. This way, I could find which brand really spoke to me. I would say my favourites were: Mount Vision, Unison, Richeson and Schimincke. I really liked Diane Townsend's pastels too, they were interesting to work with. I may have ordered some more, but you'll have to wait to see which ones I choose. ;)

I am loving these pastels, and the more of them I get the more I'll be able to do with them!