Last year when I had the time I found myself making some pastel works from photos I had taken. It's so much easier and more comfortable working from photos, but I find my heart is never really in it. I'd really much rather be working from life because I think there is more soul in it, if you know what I mean. You are responding to what is living and happening in front of you in a spontaneous way, and it is much more meaningful. The difficulties are: one that I work very slowly and two, the idea of going out in public with an easel fills me with terror! I've got so much admiration for people like Rob at http://paintingwalesdiary.blogspot.com (sorry I don't seem to be able to do proper links). He paints plein air in all weathers and completes his beautiful paintings in about an hour! I think it would take me an hour to sort my gear out and that's before starting to mix the right colours which always seems to take me ages. I think the answer is to practice in my own environment with various media first and try and speed things up a bit!
