Sennelier La Carta Pastel card ( Review )

“A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art does not.” Leonardo Da Vinci

For a very very long time, I have been using only  Canson Mi Teintes paper  for my soft pastel artworks. However lately I began exploring La Carte Pastel card by Sennelier which I purchased from Blick Art Materials a while ago. It’s not that I am unhappy with Canson paper as a choice but there are times when I feel the need to add more than three to four layers which gets difficult in Canson Mi Teintes paper as it’s surface cannot hold more than two to three layers of pastels. Whereas a sanded paper can accept many layers of pastels on it and as an artist you get the freedom to experiment with soft, hard edges. It’s very versatile.

Below are some of my 3” X 4” soft pastel studies that I created on Sennelier La Carta pastel card and I am totally in love with it. It’s great to be working with this sanded surface and I am truly enjoying it. So if you are looking to work with a sanded paper, then do go with this one as I highly recommend it. 

To browse through my latest artworks ( I am more active these days on Instagram ), do visit my INSTAGRAM portfolio where in I share my art and my thoughts behind creating it.

 

If you wish to know more details about each of the above paintings, do browse through my Instagram portfolio where I am more regular at posting my artworks in different mediums. 

Experimenting with water colour techniques

Painting with water colour medium is teaching me new lessons everyday. Each day is a new revelation. I am getting more deep into "COLOUR STUDY" as I realise that some colours work and some don't for a particular scene and atmosphere. Then there are transparent and opaque colours, warm and cool colours. Knowledge about these fundamental aspects definitely helps in better painting.

Everytime a painting completes, I evaluate and analyse the artwork looking for areas where I could do a little better next time. Given below are two small study works on hand made paper using camel paints. Both the scenes are from my "TRIP TO HIMACHAL". The scenic beauty of Himachal is unparalleled. Its truly a paradise on earth. Painting scenes from Himachal gives me true happiness.

It revives the beautiful memories of the past. 

Two water colour studies of landscapes

from Himachal on handmade paper.

Joseph Zbukvik  ( Eminent water colour artist from melbourne )said in one of his interview's that "If you succeed everytime, you are not painting properly." 

Read his interview HERE. Courtesy Artist Sterkhov

Drawing and Sketching a tree - Students work

Some tree sketchings done by a student during a ONE DAY WORKSHOP during which the student learnt the use of charcoal pencil and white pastel pencil on grey paper. The works are done on hand made paper and Canson Mi teintes paper. 

Canson Mi Teintes comes in many different colours and pastel or charcoal pencil work good on it. It is a good exercise for " Tonal value study". This is the third workshop attended by the same student who has previously come for soft pastel and charcoal workshop too.

Two tree trunk sketchings

done by a student during a workshop

Art workshops are fun. I get to interact with people who are passionate about art. I teach the simple techniques which I have learnt myself over a period of time by experimenting and exploring and doing my own kind of research. It has been a journey of rediscovering myself. 

Art workshop brings people of all age groups together and the passion speaks for itself. The work of each participant is different and unique because they think differently, apply the strokes in a unique manner and that is really so important for me. An art workshop infuses new energy in all of us and we all get so motivated and inspired. I teach or rather I should say " When I teach, I learn." The language of ART is universal. I see that in all my workshops where people meet and talk a lot about their work, their passion and share their ideas.

Sometimes I revisit my older posts in my blog. I started on tree sketchings last year in order to understand the tree anatomy better as I was planning to get into landscape paintings.

Given below are the links to my two old works.

http://charcoalspastelsandmore.blogspot.in/2014/06/another-tree-sketching-in-charcoal-by.html

http://charcoalspastelsandmore.blogspot.in/2014/12/exposed-roots-of-tree-in-charcoal-and.html

Framing of my pastel paintings

Every artist follows a particular pattern of framing his or her works. What works best to enhance the beauty of the painting matters the most. I decided to keep an off white mountboard around the art work before framing it under the glass.

The frame used is mostly vandyke brown coloured fibreboard frame, the thickness of which depends on the size of my painting. These frames are lightweight and very durable and I know this from experience as I have been using them for years now. For my charcoal works I have replaced the brown frames with the black ones.

Given below is the image of three of my framed paintings, all done in soft pastel medium.

Framed soft pastel painitngs

For my future art works I would love to experiment with directly framing the painting under glass ie by providing a spacer between the painting and the glass. With a spacer in between the pastel particles will fall below and the painting will not touch the glass. 

My paintings can also be seen on my facebook page www.facebook.com/charcoalspastelsandmore

I have also become a member of Fine art America and my paintings are on the page

http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/manju+panchal/all