The Artistic Details:
-I use exclusively 18'' x 24'' Strathmore Drawing (300 series) acid-free medium weight paper
-I use Mungvo gallery semi-hard pastels
-I use Blair Very Low Odor Spray Fix (fixatives) - I spray one time, then, let sit 30 mins. - spray once more (just to be sure), let sit an additional 30 mins.

-------pastels usually take me about/up to no more than 6 hours (from start-to completion) // BUT, this Michale Graves pastel was extremely difficult to do, as it took my close to about a week to get it completely done. Sketching (especially pastelg) a person is BY FAR (((NOT))) even close to being my speciality ;) ------------>>>>> Now, for the story of what pushed me into doing such an (extremely, and very difficult) pastel................

Michale Graves, a man; a very special and extremely beautiful and most talented man. I fell in love w/the guy; well not really, I more so mean his voice. The ONLY man in this entire world who has EVER had the power to make me cry, just by singing. Famous Monsters-The Misfits-"Saturday Night", there it was. Time stood forever still, whilst listening to this song! Been my favorite for many years (then, came "You Awful Me"-that's another story!). Michale was forever captured in my heart!!! Before recently, I had last heard of Michale's "Graves" demo. I had had that a long time ago. Never knew of anything else. Then, I decide to do the MySpace thing, low-and-behold, there he is! I was all excited. At this time I still really didn't know a darn thing about Damien Echols, or the WM3 for that matter. I started to catch some things here and there, but I still wasn't getting it. I forgot about it for a while, well not that I "forgot", just never thought anything more of it. I don't know how I missed it from Michale's profile page, but a few weeks ago, caught some video thing about Michale saying if at least half of the people on his friend's list would at least donate 1 dollar, that would be (well, I can't quite remember his exact words), but it would be a good start in to getting a lawyer, for the Damien Echols fund. At first I thought, well, I don't have any money (I pretty much spent all I had getting all my 'NEW-FOUND' Michale Graves albums!), I want to do something to make a difference, but I don't know what, sell some of my things on eBay? Well, that night I had a dream, I don't really remember much, just a voice from God (I am a very religious person) saying to me as I was on the verge of waking up, 'they are innocent, he is innocent'. I knew exactly what I had to do. I started right away in trying to do this, I got upset, threw away my 1st working sketch, tried to get ideas of how to do this. God is telling me to do this. This is, if nothing else may be this 1 thing that I can do to help someone in need. But, I can't do this! I talked w/my Mom about my sketcher's block (if there's such a thing?), and, she gave me some pointers and some very good advice on how to overcome this overwhelming problem. I honestly, really CAN'T draw people. Trying to make a longer story short - this pastel took me right around a week to do! The hardest pastel I think that I will ever have to draw in my life, honestly, it was worth all the frustration and time. If even it just to make a little bit for the Damien Echols fund, and honestly what means the most to Michale, really does mean the most to me, it was all worth it. I truly believe their innocence. -Seanda Plunkett