Pastel ramblings, and Prague

Well my pastel painting is going to be on hold for awhile.  We are heading to visit the family in VA for 2 weeks, and pastels are not the easiest to transport.  But I did pick up some watercolor paper today and packed up my paints to take with me.  I think it is time to flip back to watercolors for a while anyway. I miss my brushes. And I am interested to try out some of my color theory and palette ideas in watercolors.  I also have tons of reference pictures ready to go.  I am excited to get some pictures of Va for future paintings.  This is my most favorite place on earth yet I have zero paintings of Virginia in my house.  This must change! Charlottesville especially has some gorgeous scenery.

Here is a pastel from a few months back of a cathedral in Prague that we visited a year ago.  The stained glass windows are just amazing in person and I tried to capture their brilliance in this painting by using an otherwise muted palette and saving the brights for the windows. This one is big- maybe 16x20? I have standardized my painting sizes and it will be much easier for faming in the future.  Nearly everything is 11x14 or 16x20. Anything smaller just feels too small and forces me to paint tight which I am trying to avoid.  This is my sweet spot. And the very last marks I put in the painting were the blue violet color around the bottom doorways and it changed everything.  This is what I absolutely love about pastel- those moments that it all changes and you just think "yessssss!" This painting will be listed for sale in my etsy shop.