I wanted to try watercolor and had what I thought was a beautiful white begonia washed in with a pale yellow. I took it along to an orchestra rehearsal to show a friend who paints in watercolor and his response in the 15 seconds between numbers was he thought it was the most insipid watercolor he’d ever seen. It could have been because he was a brass player. I thought insipid be damed and started into it with pastel. The work may still be insipid in terms of pastel proficiency, however, at the time I was very happy with it. Thus began my love affair with pastel.