Apples on Pastelbord

The apples are finished! I really enjoyed working on this piece.

But...I must admit that at the beginning I was having some doubts. When I started working on the underpainting for the first apple, my mind was chattering away, 'you can't do it, you have messed it up, you can't save this, good thing it is only a 5x7 panel'. I was only on the underpainting layer! Yikes. This doesn't normally happen to me, now that I am comfortable with my medium, but this time I guess I wasn't as confident using the gray Pastelbord. I mention this in case you ever have these thoughts when working on a piece. Now I look at my dear little apples and think 'What if I had stopped at the beginning?' That would have been a shame. So, my advice - buck up and press on...play some of your favourite music, loud if you have to, sing along, jog around the room reciting how wonderfully gifted you are, look at some of your past work that turned out okay, pour yourself a 'stiffner' if necessary or maybe just a nice glass of wine...you get the idea. Whatever you do, don't give up and don't give in to these goofy thoughts. You can do it!

And for those of you concerned about my welfare and who perhaps don't know my sense of humour, the stiffner was not required and I am not at risk of becoming an alcoholic for the sake of my art! :-)

Okay, on to something else - Have you ever wondered how to find 'your customer'? I urge you to visit this blog, www.theextraordinarypencil.blogspot.com today. Artist Marsha Robinett has posted a Weekend Chat Line entitled What's your best venue for art sales? This topic follows last weekend's chat on how to price your art. I posted a comment on this past topic and my thoughts inspired Marsha to post this new topic on connecting with buyers. I appreciate Marsha posting this topic and I look forward to seeing what thoughts come in over the next few days. Marsha has a wonderful blog so do spend some time looking around.

I am now off to shop for some track lighting for my studio. I am teaching my Introduction to Coloured Pencil course next week and I would like to improve the lighting over the tables. If you live in the Ottawa area and would like to attend, there is still room and there is still time to register. Just contact me and we can quickly work out the details. For info on this course (and others that I teach) click here: classes. If next week isn't good for you, the course is also running in June.