Here's a piece I knocked out quickly so as to have something fresh for the CTPS challenge painting at the meeting yesterday. I didn't expect to make the meeting but we ended up getting back from our trip a day earlier than originally planned so I was able to go. Since I woke up early and then started fretting that I didn't have a painting for the challenge, I popped out of bed and made one. This one was from one of my vacation photos. The challenge was to draw water. The photo of this creek at the bottom of the trail to Hanging Lake had both still water illuminated by bright sun and also rushing water bubbling over rocks making it even more of a challenge. My husband says this is one of the best ones I've done so far, so perhaps I need to get up in the dead of night and throw pieces together really fast (only kidding). The challenge painting concept is a really good one. Each month the group sets a challenge for the next meeting. Every one who wants to play tries to create a pastel painting to address that topic. It's a wonderful way to stretch yourself doing things you might not otherwise undertake. At the meeting we each show our piece and discuss it and accept advice on how it could be improved. Next month is an abstract or non-objective piece. That is a huge challenge for almost all of us. It's easy to look at abstracts and say how easy they are to make, try making one and you'll see that it takes far more skill than it looks like to come up with a piece you'd be willing to hang on your wall.
