On Tuesday this week I got together with a friend I met on line at Wet Canvas.com and we had planned to paint together at a local Wildlife Refuge. However, when we got there it was so cold that we decided instead to go to her home which was nearby, and paint in her studio. She has a great set-up and an enviable collection of pastels, I thought I had a lot, but now I feel deprived!! She gave me some photos to choose from and this is the one I selected. It was quite a change for me and not without it's difficulties, but I was quite pleased with the end result.

Now that our visitors have departed I got back to my studio today and worked on this picture from a photograph I took while we were in Maine for Columbus Day weekend. I'm not sure exactly where it is but I really enjoyed painting this. For so long everything has been green, green and more green! I have been longing for the Fall colors to start appearing and this is the first one I have done.

I was supposed to start a Portrait in Pastel class but sadly there weren't enough people signed up and the class had to be cancelled. I was really disappointed. Although portraits are not my strong suit I was looking forward to learning more and had even bought special pastel sticks for the class. I had planned on doing a portrait of my little granddaughter Sarah, but it was not to be. I'm hoping that the class will be offered again sometime.

This is a photo of a painting I did for some dear friends who invited us to stay with them in a family cottage on Cape Cod. It also happened to coincide with their upcoming 40th Wedding Anniversary, so I painted this for them to remind them of their favorite spot on the Cape and somewhere we have all walked often. They were both thrilled with the picture which pleased me.

The photo is not particularly good because the picture was already framed when I took it, and that always presents problems when trying to take a photograph.