Something New

For today's Adventure in Art, I took a stab at using pastels (both soft and pencil) which I haven't used before.  I had a nice photo of a juvenile Pied-billed Grebe which I chose because it had a limited color palette, on the theory that would be easier when using new materials.

Things started out well, and I liked how easy it was to blend pastels, but I ran into trouble with the bill, where the tiny details were difficult to get right.  The pencils did not sharpen well and kept breaking off points, and I didn't have quite the right colors, even blended together, for the bill.  Erasing and reworking made it worse, so I had to give up.  A good learning experience overall though, and I'll certainly try pastels again.

Also, I got fingerprint smudges everywhere!  Should have put a protective sheet down.  I do like the way the eye turned out -- quite expressive.