Cardinal, Etc.

I finally got around to the cardinal that Mr. Beloved had been asking me to do and which had been going around in my head for a while. Sometimes, these things have to tumble around in my brain for a long time before they are given birth, if they ever do come to fruition. This fella was in a series of photos and he was very kind to the camera. They were not taken by me, but the photographer who did take them got some nifty shots. Here is my portrait of Mr. Cardinal. It is 9×13 soft pastels on velour paper.

Speaking of pastels, the other day I noticed that I was going to need to replenish my pastel stock. I use the store brand from Dick Blick Art Supplies. They are very nice and slightly more affordable than most of the name brands, especially when you buy them in sets. I initially bought a set of 30 landscape colors and a set of 30 portrait colors. Well, of course, when you buy a set of almost anything, you do not necessarily use every piece of the set, so to replace the ones I use most often, I can order them separately. Well, the only problem with that is that when you remove the label from the pastel stick, to use it, you don’t know what the color name is anymore. Hmmm… So, I thought it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Wrong. For example, there are 10 green or close-to-green colors. Well, there are also four shades of each color. And I had to try to figure it out with comparing what I had in my hand with the computer screen color chart. Oh, stinkweed!

So, I decided to make a color chart and then I looked up the list, on the website, of what each set contained. I then added each color to the cart on the site, so that I could see the best representation of the color and I think I got it figured out.

So, I arranged my pastels in the trays that came in the boxes, according to color, as best I could, and made labels to tell me what is in each tray in each slot. Now, I just have to keep them nice and neat and I should always know what I have and it should make it easy to reorder.

Why they don’t come that way, I don’t know. I think I will suggest it to Blick.

Also, I have been hard at work on my website. I do not enjoy working on my website, but, until I get rich and can hire someone else to do it, I will have to do it. I never feel like it is done and I decided to make a shop, because the prints that I have for sale are getting lost in the blog archives. LOL! So, instead of a monthly offering, I have a shop with categories. I will keep updating it, regularly, as I can get to it. The shop is the last thing on my website menu. If you have time or interest, please look over the site and let me know if you have any suggestions. I need all the help I can get with website design. I do not know what I am doing. LOL!

This is one of the photos I took this last fall. He looks like he is saying,

“Don’t point that camera at me. Can’t I raid your feeder in peace? Have some respect for my privacy, please.” — Mr. Cardinal