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I have long considered myself a rather poor photographer. In fact, I still joke that I learned to draw and paint because it is quicker and easier for me than getting a decent photo. Usually when I grab my camera, it is for the purpose of capturing something as a reference for my drawing and painting, or to put a snapshot up on my blog so friends and family in various states can see what I am writing about. Every once in a while, a photograph actually looks decent - my standard joke is that I am good for only one good photo per calendar year.

Perhaps I am simply getting enough practice, or perhaps I am finally getting the hang of cameras, but I am noticing I am getting a few more decent photos than just one a year. Maybe it is time to learn to use the little Nikon Cool Pix camera and retire my Kodak Easy Share bought in 2008 or 2009.

Dry pastels, which I now refer to as dusties in contrast to oil pastels, were my first "real" art medium. The summer I was seven, I found a basic set of 12 semi-hard pastels that my mother had used for a college elective course tucked into the closet of her old bedroom. Immediately excited, I quickly used almost all of them by painting a beach sunset, complete with a palm tree. I took the picture and pastels down to show my grandmother, and my mother said that was probably the first time those pastels had been used to make something pretty and that the set was now mine.

From time to time, I feel a need to return to my dusties as a way to reconnect to the uninhibited creativity of my childhood.