Painting! Painting! Painting!

I'm afraid I haven't taken much time to blog lately because we went to Atlanta for three days and then I was so tired from the trip that I didn't do anything for two days! I've found that I enjoy painting more than anything else I've tried for self-amusement. Mostly, I work in oils, but while I was in Atlanta and part of the time in the hotel room, I decided to try to do something with pastels. I had taken some books with me and decided to try one of the paintings in the book but to change it some so that it's an original. After I finished that, we went to supper with our friends and the restaurant manager came to talk with us after we finished. It turns out that he is a very interesting person!! He told us how he used to "ride the rails" when he was younger and then later on decided to go to college and he studied Art there. He finally settled on graphic art and his love is calligraphy now. He took out a piece of paper and made each of us a calligraphy writing and wrote our names for us along with his name. I asked him if he'd look at the pastel portrait I did of an Indian Maiden and give me his honest opinion since he too is an artist. He said that he loved it!

Here is the pastel of the Indian Maiden that I showed to him:

He was so kind and pleasant, that I asked if I could take his picture and try to paint him! He agreed and also let us take pictures with him. I went back to our room and decided to do a pastel portrait of him.

This is the result:

And finally, this afternoon, I decided to get back to my oils and paint my husband and I from a prayer card picture we had done a year ago.

Here is the result of that painting: