Pastels, Portland Maine 1986-91

I returned to Portland, Maine, USA and rented a 1000sq ft studio over an antiques warehouse on India St. I worked full time as an engineer and drew again at open evening life classes at USM and PSA. I also drew many of my friends in my studio and occasionally hired professional models there. I had used Schwann Stabilo hard pastel pencils since 1972, mostly transparently on tinted paper for portraits, but now I also used soft pastels sometimes for nude studies usually on soft white waterleaf paper (Lennox) prepared by stretching it and giving it an all over wash of watercolour to tint it. These were started from life, but usually took so long to complete they had to be finished without the models presence. I could not find a technique for laying on the pastel thickly and rapidly in an accurate and controlled manner, so after a while I lost interest in pastel as a medium. I have tried again with it more recently.