Played around with background here--

Master pastelist Albert Handell told a much younger version of me that the background should be as important as the subject. For this 9x12 soft pastel "Garden Heartbeats" I used a light, impressionistic gouache underpainting in the background areas, then applied pastels selectively over that. I'm not such a purist to any medium that I won't use whatever works, and I like the mottled complexity combining mediums gave me here. First time for everything--but I'll do this technique again on florals. Thoughts on backgrounds for botanical art???