Seems like only a week ago-

- but actually almost two weeks now.   Time has been flying - this was the pastel done on April 11th. Gail posed in an Egyptian gown. The shadows were quite dramatic. I used a deep gold pastel paper but lightened it slightly on one side while deepening a bit on the other. The gold with the turquoise accents on the gown made a nice contrast. I didn't have too much trouble getting the black deep enough but I am told that it is possible to blend in vine charcoal first and then the black pastel will cover better. I must add a stick of vine charcoal to my kit ... in case of.... Tomorrow we are drawing again with a different model and a different theme - "On the town". It is planned to have the model on a bar stool, so that will be interesting.  I think - along with the vine charcoal, that I will put a pair of bird-watching binoculars in my bag. Bird-watching because they are not *too* strong. I think they might be handy to check on details - especially facial features and hands. Sometimes it is hard to see everything clearly - depends on where the light hits - and where your position is, of course. And it makes a difference what scale you are working on.  Here, the face is not too large because there had to be room on the paper for the whole body, O course, that was just my decision - I could have cropped it at the waist and then put more detail in the embroidered accents.  Cropping can be more dramatic- but then it is always tempting, I think to draw the whole figure and whole costume. Decisions, decisions - what will I decide tomorrow?