New pic and thoughts about pastels

This is my new creation, now on sale at ImageKind.com.

I have been looking at my pastel collection with the idea of using them for a new artwork. Although I have several good brands, my favorite are Nupastels by Prismacolor. They are very hard compared to other brands, but you get far less dust on your hands and clothes. You have to do more work to get the pastel on the paper. My favorite papers are Canson Mi-Teintes. I discovered that one side has more texture than the other, and for me the less textured side works out better with the hard pastels. I have used Winsor & Newton Artists' Workable Fixative, which causes little or no change in the colors. "Workable" means that you can apply more pastels on top of the fixative. This brand also works with charcoal and pencil.