Well I did a few finishing touches to my picture of the Merrimac River picture and it's now in it's frame and hanging on the wall.  In real life, the sky is not quite as pink as it appears in this photograph, but sometimes the camera does lie.

It rained all day today and my car was in the shop for repairs so I was confined to the house, which gave me the perfect excuse to spend pretty much all day in my studio.   I tweaked my Winter in the Park picture a bit,  by lowering the height of the snow on the far bank so that it wasn't in line with the top of the bridge.  It looks better now.

On Sunday we went on a harbor boat ride from Newburyport and I took several pictures while we were out, so today I have been working on a painting from one of those phtographs.  It's just about finished now, so I'll be posting it tomorrow.

I've been working on this for two days, and as my husband went fishing today I had time to head to my studio and put in the finishing touches.  This is a park in Plymouth, Massachusetts that we visited in February.  The sun was shining but there was still a lot of snow around.

I wanted to do this one because while I was at the Convention I took a class on Winter Landscapes and was anxious to try out some of the things I learned there.  Making the water look like ice was probably the most challenging thing in this piece

Frustrating day today.  I spent all morning looking through photographs searching for a suitable subject to paint.  Finally decided on one and couldn't wait to get to my new pastels and paper.  But, nothing went right and after an hour at my easel with half the painting done, I hated it and took it into the bathroom and washed it all off!!  This particular paper is washable but it did leave an outline of my work which I should be able to cover up with my next effort.  I don't know what was wrong, I just couldn't seem to find my stride.

Just got back from the IAPS Convention (International Association of Pastel Societies) in Albuquerque, New Mexico - what a great time.  Met several people that I previously only knew from being on-line on Wet Canvas.  We had a get-together in one of the member's rooms which was really good.  They are all very nice and friendly.  I took in a couple of demonstrations by well-known pastel artists and picked up a lot of useful information, now I just have to put it into practice!

I also bought so much stuff at the Trade Show that we had to buy another suitcase to carry everything home.  My pastel collection is growing by leaps and bounds!  I have spent all morning organizing my supplies in my studio.  I took loads of photos of New Mexico so I'm hoping that I have captured one or two pictures that will be worthy of painting.

This is my latest picture which I have been working on for several days now.  I found the foreground sand very difficult.  It's from a photo taken on Hatteras in the early evening.  (For British readers, Hatteras is a barrier island on the outer banks of North Carolina).  I didn't take the photo myself, it's one of the ones presented on Wet Canvas as part of the May Challenge.

I started a new picture today.  It's a Cape Hatteras beach scene taken in the early evening with the sun just starting to decline.  Not sure how I'm going to get on with the sand and the shadows created by the late-day sun, but I'll give it a go!  It's one of the photos selected for the May Pastel Strokes on Wet Canvas.  Two people have already done this one, I only hope I can do it half as well.

This is my latest painting.  I took the photo during a visit to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.  This particular cemetery is a long time favorite with bird watchers and 90% of the people seen have binoculars slung around their necks or cameras with 2 foot long lens attachments.  It's beautiful there with lakes and blossom trees everywhere and lots of walking paths.  An oasis in the middle of suburbia, and a regular stopover for migrating birds at this time of year.

I took a little licence with the painting as I didn't want to include grave stones, so apart from the tree itself, everything else is pretty much from my imagination.

Today the weather is a bit iffy and I can't get out to work in the yard, so was able to spend some time at my easel and finish this picture which has been ongoing for about a week. 

I have really tried to amp-up the color this time, but of course a Fall picture is always going to have a lot of color anyway.  This is from a photograph taken about 24 years ago when we first arrived in America.  We lived in Buffalo, New York at the time and were excited to explore the surrounding area and took a trip out to the Finger Lakes.  This scene is a beautiful place called Letchworth State Park and I have called it "Following the Falls"

I painted for a couple of hours today and this time I'm trying to inject more color into my work.  My last picture was critiqued as having too many mid tones, and I have to say that I agree with this assessment.   It looks flat and uninteresting.  I'm liking what I have done so far on the current project, we'll see how the finished article looks!