Here is my first collection of work. I’m calling it the Beginner Collection. These are the first pastel paintings that I created:

After spending lots of time (and money!), I finally figured out the combination of art supplies that I need to make my pastel paintings! I’m so happy! I tested out oil pastels, and it behaves exactly as I was hoping! Actually, even better than I hoped. They blend beautifully, even if it does take a little more elbow grease on my part to get the colors to go together. Here’s the first piece I made, which I think is great:

So often while I’m working on a pastel painting, I will think, “this looks bad.” And then I will immediately correct myself and say, “trust the process.” And then it turns out fine or better than I expected. Part of why I started painting is because I would look at…

Here’s the high-level situation: I started making pastel paintings. The technique I use to make the paintings kicked-up a lot of dust. I ended up inhaling the dust and felt pretty awful for a few days. I switched gears and tried using acrylic and alcohol-based markers instead. I didn’t like…

Here is what I made today: I’m trying something new to reduce the amount of chalk dust I create. So I used markers to paint inside the bubbles. I also got a better mask that fits. And I ran the air purifier right next to me. And I opened the…

I’ve picked up some alcohol-based markers, which blend better than the acrylic markers, in the hopes of continuing to create art. I’m not very happy with the blending, and maybe the markers are not high quality, but I think I need to keep trying. It is much nicer to “paint” without inhaling dust. Will keep trying.

After so much drawing with the chalk pastels last week, even with wearing a mask and running an air filter while I worked, I still managed to irritate my throat. This is very sad because I really liked how my paintings were turning out. I especially liked layering and blending…

What a whirlwind day. I’m either coming down with something, have been battered by chalk dust, worked too hard today, have springtime allergies, or just need a good night’s sleep. Maybe it’s a mix of it all I was able to buy more markers this evening. The shop assistant showed…

I’ve been wearing a mask and working next to an air purifier, but I’m still inhaling chalk dust I think. The paintings I’ve been making with pastels kick up a lot of dust. I wanted to make more art tonight, but not add more chalk to the back of my…