Step by Step, soft pastel forest landscape ( Coorg, Karnataka )

 “Perfection is no small thing but is made up of small things.” Michelangelo 

Of late, I have been pretty busy with my water color paintings but I do miss working with soft pastels. So took out some time recently and created this forest landscape referring to my photo taken at Coorg, Karnataka. 

I have used the following brand of soft pastels as:

1. Camlin

2. Mungyo

3. Gallery

4. Kohinoor Toison Dor.

5. Sennelier

Each of these brands have their own qualities and together they work great for me. If I have to recommend one brand to buy as a set for the beginners, I would suggest set of 48 soft pastels by Kohinoor Toison Dor. These cylindrical sticks are absolutely soft on the paper and work wonders. Moreover they are economical too. As far as paper is concerned, I mostly go with Canson Mi Teintes as I find it economical and it has sufficient tooth for taking in two layers of pastels. I normally finish my work in two layers and additionally do a little touch up in the end using the extra soft Sennelier pastels.

“ On the way to Coorg”

A soft pastel painting on Canson Mi Teintes paper

Size: 7” X 9”

I have visited Coorg several times in the past and every time I am there it feels absolutely amazing. There is something magical about the nature vibes. It rejuvenates you to the core.

The Steps involved in creating the above artwork

Step 1.  Created a faint basic outline of the major shapes using a light coloured 

soft pastel pencil and later used the Mungyo and Kohinoor 

soft pastels to paint the respective tonal values keeping

in mind the source of light, and the shadows.

Step 2. After the first layer of color application ( using soft touch, as Canson Mi Teintes

cannot take in too many layers of colors ), I blended the colors 

on the paper using my finger tips to cover up the underlying

black shade of the paper. 

Step 3. After the first layer was painted and blending is complete, I carefully began with 

the background sky and slowly worked my way towards the forest 

trees and other elements as I progressed downwards towards 

the foreground. I used Kohinoor soft pastel pencils to create

the fine branches, and other details ( mostly in the

middle ground ) 

The reference photo taken at Madikeri ( Coorg, Karnataka )

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The twenty minute sketchings in my Travel sketch book

When I created my Travel sketch book it was with the intention of doing small study works without getting into too many details. However it so happens that as an artist one easily gets carried away to work out all the details. Hence I decided to time my study works so as to spend just about twenty to twenty five minutes on each of them.

It gets difficult though as there is always something to be erased or added. Nevertheless timing each work did help and given below are few of my Twenty minute sketches done in pencil and charcoal.

Three study sketches

created on Canson c a grain paper

The subjects chosen for sketching are random as I want to try out everything be it still life, nature or portrait.The first sketching is of a leaf which I picked up from some field and the sketching has been done using both graphite and charcoal pencil.

The next sketching is of a simple Forest scene where I have used willow charcoal in the background and then moved on to using Camel charcoal pencil in the next layer.

In the third sketching of the tree trunk I have used a black ball point pen initially to create the outline and the dark tones and later I have used both willow charcoal and Camel charcoal pencil to complete the work.

Diane Wright a graphite artist writes on Importance of sketching

"Sketching is the fundamental building block for an artist. It is used to develop a personal visual vocabulary. Sketches are visual exercises in problem solving."