This was a perfect opportunity to practice working with oil pastels since I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth pulled out. I still don't know how I feel about oil pastels. Honestly, I feel like I'm just working with extra creamy crayons (I mean that's basically what they are).

Working on the swans was something out of my comfort zone. I usually stick to dogs and cats when it comes to animals, so attempting swans was... a choice. It was hard. But I think that's kind of the point of studies, just trying things you wouldn't normally try and seeing what happens.

The black and white piece was a different kind of challenge. Working with limited colors ended up being a really good exercise in understanding values. When you strip everything down, you can't hide behind color anymore. You have to really pay attention to how light and dark interact, and what makes something feel like it's glowing versus just... grey. I didn't expect to learn that much from one painting but here we are.