setting up my painting studio

I have been wanting to get back to painting, my first medium, for a few years. As a matter of fact my daughter gave me a gift certificate for Blick and I bought a raft of paints. I really didn't know where to start since I never had any formal art training when I was painting. I just painted what I saw. When I went back to college in '93, I minored in art like sketching with live models, photography - so long ago we processed our own film and made our own prints. I also took pottery for two semesters and "Aesthetics", the philosophy of art. Every time I saw a certain type of painting I longed to do THAT. I bought the pastel pencils (from previous posts) and went on to YouTube to learn how to use them. Then I stumbled on to a painting instructor and when I saw her work I yelled (to myself) THAT, THAT is what I want to do. I have scrap books filled with photos of painting that looked like THAT. So now I am taking pastel painting lessons and hope one day to approach painting like THAT.

The box for my pastels. I made this myself. You can see the goopy glue on it (smile)

Some of the pastels

Easel assembled and pastels to my right

My first study (not a painting). It's sort of like a sketch in color.