Clouds in the sky - a charcoal painting by Manju Panchal

Charcoal Painting - on Fabriano Academia paper

I tried my new charcoal work on FABRIANO ACADEMIA paper, 200 gsm and I found it fairly

good. It has a texture on its surface and the paper is acid free. I used CONTE charcoal pencil,

Chunky charcoal from CRETACOLOUR and my blending tools to complete this art work.

Clouds in itself is a new subject and I never thought of painting it earlier but I wanted to try this one.

This charcoal painting is from my personal collection of photographs which we took during our visit to DALHOUSIE, in HIMACHAL PRADESH. One late evening the sky had gone pretty dark with heavy clouds and then the rays of the sun came strikingly through the space in between and we captured a few photographs.

Rays of Light

Charcoal Painting on Fabriano paper.

Size 8" X 11" ( Including frame size )

The Image above is of the Fabriano Academia Pad which has about 30 sheets in it.

This book is available at ART STATION which is at Four Bunglows at Andheri West.

These sheets are not only good for Charcoal sketching but I also use them

for my graphite sketching works.

Still life painting - An onion and a potato

Still life painting by Manju Panchal

I take frequent breaks while doing my bigger, serious art works. During these breaks I kind of refresh 

myself by using the oppurtunity at hand to do still life paintings. It always and definitely is a very good quick painting exercise. Some days back I painted these two small works of an onion and a potato.

Painting an onion, everytime poses a little challenge. The colours have to be right. It helps to learn a lot 

about colour mixing. I have almost always done fruits, so this time I moved away from my comfort

zone and decided to do both the potato and an onion, the basic requirement in any Indian cooking.

The paper used is Indian hand made paper and Colours used are Camel artists water colour tubes. 

Both the still life paintings above are pretty small study works.

Size 4" X 5" ( Excluding the mountboard )

If you are interested in mixed media works or textured works which can go as wall hangings

in your beautiful house then do visit my other blog www.ethnikhomedecor.blogspot.in

Leh, Ladakh - water colour painting by Manju Panchal

Another water colour painting in the series of Leh Ladakh Painitngs.

It has been great fun doing these beautiful snow capped mountains, creating shadows and rocks.

Makes me feel so close to nature. The serenity in the atmosphere is so captivating.

I have used Indian hand made paper and Winsor and Newton water colours to create this

water colour painting.

Leh Ladakh journey

Water colour painting on Indian hand made paper

Size 8" X 11" ( Including mountboard )

What I love about water colour paintings is that is that I do not have to worry about storing it

as there is no tension of smudging. I can simply put it in a polythene sheet and stack it in a 

folder for later use.

Water colour painting of Ladakh landscape by Manju Panchal

This is my second water colour painting of Ladakh landscape. As mentioned in my earlier post I have taken a few photographs from a friend who visited Ladakh and using the photograph as reference I am doing a few water colour works using Wet on Wet technique.

I have made a few alterations with respect to the colour of the shadows in comparison to the original
photograph in order to enhance the brightness of the painting. This view of the snow clad mountains
is on the way to ladakh and it speaks so much of the heavenly place existiing in our country.
A must visit for all nature lovers.

The paper I used for this art work is Indian hand made paper and the paints used are Winsor and Newton.
I have started liking the Indian hand made paper as it is very reasonable and works very well for
wet on wet technique. It holds water for reasonably good time as compared to cartridge sheet.
Soon I will start using my collection of FABRIANO and CAMPAP paper too which I purchased some time back. Most of the imported good quality papers are easily available at HIMALAYA STATIONERY at
Fort. Their official website has all information regarding products and prices.

The Majestic Mountains

Water colour painting on Indian hand made paper

Size 8" X 11" ( including mountboard )

Water colour painting of single banana by Manju Panchal

I am presently doing the landscapes of Leh Ladakh and there is an incomplete charcoal painting
of Niagara falls. But I still take out a little time to do quick water colour painting of few objects
around me.

Banana is one of my favourite still life subjects as it is available round the year and hence created
 these two water colour paintings of banana on Indian hand made paper using Winsor and Newton water
colour ( Cotman series )

Still life - single banana

Water colour painting on Indian hand made paper

Still Life - single banana

Water colour painting on Indian hand made paper

Ladakh - water colour painting by Manju Panchal

Water Colour painting of Ladakh Landscape

One of my close friends went to Leh, Ladakh a few years back. So on my recent visits to her place I borrowed a few of her personal photographs so that I could capture the beauty of the magnificent

snow clad mountains in water colour paintings.

This is the first one that I tried and I am glad that I did because it is a little different from my usual 

seascapes. The scenic beauty in the Leh Ladakh region is amazing and I definitely want to travel

there myself one day. I am planning to do more in the series. I used Winsor and Newton water colour

cakes on Indian handmade paper to do this particular painting.

Snow clad mountains of Ladakh

Water colour painting on Indian Hand Made paper

Size 11" X 14" ( Including mountboard )

Water colour paintings of MORE SEASCAPES

Seascapes done in water colours by Manju Panchal

Seascapes continue to lure me as one of my favourite subjects and time and again

I come back to doing more of these. I find it a very relaxing experience. Sitting at the seashore and 

hearing the gentle waves hitting the shore can be a timeless experience.

The two seascapes below have been done using Winsor and Newton water colours on handmade 

paper. I have once again used the wet on wet technique in both of them.

Seascapes

Size 9" X 12"

Water colour on Indian Handmade paper

SOLD

Acrylic Painting of Guru Nanak by Manju Panchal

I created this acrylic Painting of Guru Nanak ( Religeous Guru of Sikh Community of India ) for a very
good friend of mine about ten years back. When I visited her recently I clicked a photograph of the
same so I could post it on my blog.

My old works always inspire me. I was very patient while doing this work as it involved a lot of shading
and acrylic paints dry very fast so I remember having used the Camel acrylic paints and I used it in
form to add layers. The size of the canvas board that I used for this work was 10" X 12".

Acrylic Painting of Guru Nanak on canvas

Still life painting of garlic in watercolour

Water Colour Painting of two garlic placed side by side - By Manju Panchal

I have been busy doing lot of charcoal since past few days, hence today I decided to do a little

 water colour study of still life work. Did a simple painting of garlic placed side by side.

 I used my Winsor and Newton water colour cakes and the paper I used was Indian hand made paper.  

Garlic side by side

Water Colour Painting on Indian hand made paper

Size 6" X 7" ( Including mount board )

Soft Pastel Paintings - Sold ones

Sold Paintings done in soft pastels by Manju Panchal

I started my soft pastel paintings only recently ie about four years back. Some of my works got sold

and I did not have any clear image with me. I managed to find a few images clicked using my mobile.

Hence using Pic Collage I am trying to do a little editing and then posting the images.

Two paintings as below are done on Canson Mi Tentes Paper.
Seascape is done on red tinted paper and the landscape with red mountains is done on blue Coloured Canson paper. 

I used a combination of Mungyo and KOH-I-NOOR soft pastels for both of them.  

 Sold works

"Creating the Blog" is the best thing that has happened to me in this yr ie 2014. Now I sketch and paint with more vigour and look forward to posting my works. It keeps me busy and keeps me going. One thing leads to another and I am learning so much more about computer, the net, the free applications, making collage, editing , posting etc. In all I am educating myself.

Landscape painting in charcoal by Manju Panchal

Charcoal Painting on FAVINI PAPER ( smooth side )

I am presently in the process of trying out charcoal painting on different papers using new pencils available in the market. Also I am enjoying the landscape works especially using my own reference photographs.

This particular work is done from my MATHERAN trip. Matheran is a beautiful hill station near NERAL. It is a must for nature lovers as the greenary and forest is just amazing. I have tried a little different technique in this work and have not spent more than three hours on it as my basic intention was to see how things work out. I have used CONTE A PARIS charcoal pencil, CHUNKY CHARCOAL from CRETACOLOUR, my blending tools and eraser for the same. 

I have not framed the work but after completing it I love to keep the mount board around it to judge the overall visual effect. I have not added details of each and every leaf but just created a few suggestions with the pencil.

The shadowed path

Charcoal painting on FAVINI paper

Size 9" X 9" ( including mountboard )

Storing thumbnail sketches - My way

Thumbnail sketches by Manju Panchal ( My way of storing them )

I have already posted in detail about thumbnail sketches,OR small sketches Or mini sketches.

You can go to the post by clicking here.  I have a good collection of thumbnail sketches and I refer to them from time to time. These sketches take a very short time to complete and give me a lot of satisfaction.

To solve the issue of storing them I took out some of my old albums ( present day situation, most of my photos are digital and I do not print out all of them ) and filled them up with my thumbnail sketches.

These sketches are all different mediums, like soft pastels on black paper, white pastels on black paper etc.

But it is fun to go through one's work in leisure.

As shown in the image above where the album is on extreme left. I have taken 2 images of opened up albums where my four different sketches can be seen. All paintings are done on ordinary black paper using soft pastels. It is not that this method will totally help in avoiding the smudging ,but I am quite happy with this way of storing because I can put 36 and that is a large number of my works in just one album.

At some time if I feel that some particular one is really good and I need to give it a final touch then I simply remove it carefully, spray little fixative over it and then add one more layer of pastels over it. 

Soft Pastel painting of seashore by Manju Panchal

This soft pastel painting of seashore has been created in the company of a friend who is a fine artist and has done her fine art from the reputed Chitrakala Parishat in Banglore. I met her during one of my train journeys about eighteen months back and our art talk brought us together. The friendship continued and we have bonded very well over a period of time and I owe a lot to her as she has been a very motivating factor in my life. We discuss art, share our views, evaluate each others work and when we get an oppurtunity to meet we make use of the time to create some art work. 

We used a combination of Gallery soft pastels and KOH I NOOR soft pastels to create this seashore and we were so charged up and excited that we completed it in a day. After doing the first layer we took a break. Sprayed a fixative and then went on to do the second and final layer. In all we must have spent about four hours on it. 

Waves hitting the shore

Size 10" X 14"

Available for sale

Soft Pastel painitng on Dark brown Fabriano paper

Quick charcoal sketches using Compressed Charcoal

As a fine artist I have been trying out all mediums and many a times it becomes difficult to decide as to which is my favourite one. Last week one of my artist friends was at my place and as usual we got into sketching few objects. I tried quick sketches using just Camel Compressed Charcoal and General's charcoal pencil. I particularly want to get into using the compressed charcoal because I love the absolute dark black tone that one can create with it which helps in creating depth and contrast in the sketching. 

Two different still life

sketches done using General's charcoal pencil

Camel Compressed Charcoal

Image of Camel Compressed Charcoal

Painting a Tree Trunk - Soft Pastel work

My landscape painting from my Coorg reference photographs continues and this particular tree was

right in front of the Homestay where we stayed on three different occasions. The colours, the

textures were so fascinating that keeping the tree in focus I have eliminated lot of other elements from the photograph and given a blurred background. the far distance is again covered by beautiful hills.

With this particular soft pastel painting I learnt to manipulate the photograph to add and subtract few

elements and to create a work which I want to see. The viewer I feel should be left

to analyse his interpretation of the painting.

Textured tree trunk

Soft Pastels on Canson Mi Tentes paper.

Size 12" X 16" ( Including the mount board )

Available for sale

Watercolour Painting - Colourful seascape

I created this seascape about two weeks back on Indian hand made paper using wet on wet technique with Camel artists quality water colours. I was not quite happy after the first layer was done. I kept it aside and got busy with my other works. Then finally I dug out my old collection of Winsor and Newton water colour tubes which I had purchased about twelve years back ( Cotman quality ) and added the second layer and details using Winsor and Newton Colours. It brightened up my seascape and I was happy at having saved my work.

Colourful seascape

Watercolour on Indian hand made paper

Size 10" X 12" ( Including mount board )