Nako, a heritage village in Kinnaur valley, Himachal Pradesh

Nako is one of the most picturesque villages of Kinnaur valley. ( 11500 ft ).The houses are beautiful made of stones and mud. The roofs are constructed with a layer of skinned out Eucalyptus tree trunks which are layered parallel to one another and dried out hay too is used in between. Prayer flags and stones with religious scriptures is a common sight.

After having done lot of landscape paintings, this time around I decided to paint a typical village scene in Nako using soft pastels. It was around 10 am and nice and bright day.The houses and the lane in between were in shadows which made for a good composition. It was so much like an architectural drawing and I tried to get the perspective right. Since this is my first townscape kind of a painting I restricted myself from overdoing the details.

Nako village

Soft pastels on Fabriano paper

size 6" x 9"

NAKO - beautiful village in Himachal ( Charcoal painting by Manju Panchal )

NAKO is a small village in KINNAUR district of Himachal Pradesh. The place is beautiful and is surrounded by mountains. ( About 3600 mtrs above sea level ). We were there last year during our vacation and I have used one of my photographs to create a simple charcoal sketch. 

I have tried a new paper this time ie the Fabriano water colour paper. This paper has great texture, is white and is 300 gsm so good thickness too. The population of this village is very low and I remember we covered all the narrow lanes between the stone built houses in an hour itself. We got the oppourtunity to meet a few locals and got to discuss their lifestyle. It is great to travel to places and see nature in all its different forms.  

Nako ( village in Himachal Pradesh )

Charcoal painting on Fabriano paper. ( 300gsm)

Size 5" X 7" ( Excluding mount board )

Our trip to Himachal last year covered lots of small villages like Nako, Tabo, Kaza, Losar and Chitkul. I am so eager to create soft pastel painting of these heavenly places refering to my huge collection of personal photographs BUT I do not want to hurry as I am still working on my rocks, trees and other elements. Landscape is essentially about whole lot of different elements and I want to get them all right.