Sharon, thank you so much for your advice. There will be a 6 hour model session this month that I will be attending and I will have my pastels in hand. Hopefully I can pick up color variations while I'm in the right setting. I may even be able to squeeze in two hours on Mondays while my daughter's in school to work on my patio. I've never been good at color and not having proper lighting at home is no help either. I read Marvin's thread on lighting and plan to buy sometime soon.
Even if this piece turns out to be a huge failure, I know I will take something from it and use it later, even if it's what not to do.
Thank you again.