Le bougeoir framed

This is the framed painting of the Spanish candlestick, as promised.
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Le bougeoir espagnol

Bougeoir espagnol is French for Spanish Candlestick, but of course you knew that.  I didn't keep many notes on this one. The support is Pastel Mat, and this first image is of the dark background filled in around a lightly-drawn candlestick which has had a wash of alcohol before moving on to softer pastels. 

The second image is the finished piece. I used mostly Sennelier pastels, with a touch of Schminke for the deep reds, and pastel pencils for the matchsticks. Image size is 9 x 6.5 ins. or 23 x 16.5 cm. I did not use a mat when framing, but stuck the support onto a backing piece of mat board to stiffen it, and made up a wooden fillet, painted black, to keep the image away from the glass. I'll post a picture of the framed piece if I can photograph it without too many reflections.

Hydrangea

This is a painting that I did last summer of a hydrangea blossom that has thrust its way through a neighbour's fence. I called it "Don't fence me in". I had not photographed it as I worked on it, but I can tell you that it's entirely composed of Rembrandt pastels on Clairefontaine Pastel Mat. Rather than do a blow-by-blow account of it, I have posted some close-up pictures of a few details. The original is 26 x 36 cms. or 10.25 x 14.5 ins. approximately.

I left most of the florets somewhat vague, but I did work on this single one to provide a focal point in the blossom:

This is a close-up of one of the shadow areas, with a sketchy showing of a leaf in the background:

And this is the single water droplet I included in the painting (less is more). You can see that there is not much to it: