Back from Hawaii, Ready to Paint

So it's the first week in April. I'd just come back from visiting my nephew Bryan in Hawaii. This was my first trip to Hawaii and I had an exceptional time. My smart phone was loaded with lots of photos, some I was hoping to paint. But first I wanted to tackle the apples.

I cracked open my Dakota Pastels sample pack and found a Canson Mi Teintes Touch board in a dark blue color. To my thinking this should be the perfect surface for painting the blue silk background. I had some trepidation because I had done my test apples on the Mi Teintes paper, and the Touch board is a "sanded" surface. But I took the chance and here are the results:

pastel on Canson Mi Teintes Touch

I went for realism with the apples but decided not to replicate the texture of the silk in the reference photo (at http://www.wetcanvas.com/RefLib/showphoto.php?photo=28142&cat=fav). For the apples I blocked in the main colors with NuPastel, then painted over with Blick Artists pastels.

No masterpiece, but for my first effort with the new soft pastels I am pretty pleased with the result.