Trois Oranges, pastel

I'm going to need new pastel paintings if I want to keep entering shows. There is usually an age limit of 2-3 years for a painting. And there may be additional restrictions. For example, if your painting was previously selected or won a prize it may not be eligible. So my "Rocher Percé" paintings are getting old for competition.

One thing I really like about oil is the compact setup: a palette, some paint and a few accessories.... Pastels on the other hand take quite a bit of space because I like to see all of them at the same time. I have quite a few pastels and I find myself rearranging them very often. I also only have space for one easel in my studio, and I'd like to be able to switch quickly (with a minimum of things to move around) from oil to pastel and vice versa. I'll work some more on my pastel/oil setup and I'll post a picture.

This painting is a similar still life setup as my last oil study. I really liked the color combination and I wanted to try it again. I used a mat board that was primed with a blue ground for pastel. So the surface is a bit rough and you can see the background color almost everywhere. I spent as much time looking for the right color pastel as I would have taken to mix a color in oil :(

Pastel on primed mat board, 8" x 10"