Challenge Painting

This is a pastel painting that I did for the March Challenge at Paint My Photo, an online group where photographs are posted as references for artists to paint without worry about copyright issues.  It's not a "vanity" site where any art work is displayed but is a site where the photos are the stars and only art from the photos on that site is allowed to be posted. 

The challenge for March is to choose a photo reference from all those posted and paint it for an exchange between other participating members.  I've always had a fascination with the sea (could it be because I'm originally from landlocked Kansas?) and the red sails from the reference photo clinched it as far as choosing this for my challenge reference photo. 

I'm not normally a landscape/seascape painter so I hope I did a decent enough job with this that the recipient would not be too disappointed with its arrival.  A second reason for choosing this subject was that I wanted it to be pleasing to almost anyone, male or female.  Since we won't know where to send the paintings until the end of the month, I won't know who is to receive it.

It's pastel on Clairefontaine's PastelMat and this is the painting where the support had the little dots and one line where there wasn't any of the special pastel surface.  The bare spots were small and fortunately, there weren't all that many of them, but it's still a bit of a hassle to make sure they get covered.  Have any of you who use PastelMat had problems of this sort? 

I'm also nearly finished with Foxy but will wait until I'm completely finished to post. 

And, after I finish with Foxy, I have got to get back to organizing my studio!  No, it's still not finished because I keep procrastinating about getting it done.  Somebody crack the whip!