Step by step drawing and painting - A seashore

"When you start a painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting." Fernando Botero

Painting to me is a vision, a thought process, an idea that develops in the mind and then takes shape on a piece of paper. I paint a scene from nature, inspired by its beauty.

The scene below is from Bamboo island, five kiloimetres off the northern tip of Koh Phi Phi Don, in the Krabi province of Thailand. The island has stunning beaches with beautiful rocks, white sand and limestone cliffs behind. In the painting below the beach is covered by the shadows cast by the tall cliffs behind. The source of light ie the sun is behind the cliffs and the beach is on the west side of the island.

I decided on this scene as it gave me the opportunity to work on perspective, rocks and waves hitting the shore. Moreover this scene has a very interesting design and composition.

Reaching the destination

Soft pastel painting on Canson MT paper

Size 6" X 8"

I titled the painting as "Reaching the destination" with reference to the beautiful waves which travel a long distance and finally reach the shore. It is a beautiful feeling to be at a place like this and to hear the sound of the waves splashing against the rocks, and then gently kissing the white sand and merging with the land.

The soft pastel painting on twilight Canson MT progressed in stages and the step by step images can be seen below. Its a small sized painting so I did not use my Easel. My table is my workplace.

Step 1. Creating the basic outline

using Camlin charcoal pencil.

Step 2. Blocking in the major shapes with respective colours

 keeping in mind the values. Using the soft pastels

from mixed brands.

Step 3. Adding details and final touch up.

At this stage I use pastel pencils at several places.

Of late I have started uploading my works on INSTAGRAM and I find it very convenient to do so as most of the paintings are photographed and edited on ipad itself. I am beginning to like Instagram as it helps one to browse through all my works in a Gallery format. 

My Blog has completed a little more than three years and it has recently crossed  50,000 page views. It makes me happy, although having more page views was never the "Goal" when I started blogging. Blogging happened, because I wanted to keep myself focused in my artwork and grow as an artist. It also provided me with a virtual workplace where I could upload and maintain a record of my artworks. It has been a beautiful journey and I shall write a detailed post on my "Art Blogging" soon. 

Thanks to everyone who has been part of this journey and I truly appreciate the support provided by all of you.