6" X 9" Soft pastel paintings - Landscapes

"Art is not what you see but what you make others see." By Edgar Degas

After a long break, I created two soft pastel paintings using my miscellaneous collection of

soft pastels. I worked with soft pastels for many months at a stretch in 2014 and the beginning 

of 2015. In the past few months I have been indulging in a lot of water colour artwork and 

the water colour medium is undoubtedly the most challenging one. 

With my water colour paintings I am still experimenting and exploring. However with my soft

pastels my technique is almost set. But I am open to trying out something new.  

Charcoals and soft pastels are both dry mediums and a lot in the painting happens as per your 

technique of holding the chalk and creating the strokes and blending. Over a period of time we 

all get used to a particular way of doing our artwork and that starts defining our individual style.

I complete my painting in two layers. In the first layer I usually do a little blending but in the 

second layer I normally use a lot of strokes and very little blending.

Apart from using soft pastels, I have also used Camel charcoal pencil at places to define a few

things such as rocks, crevices in mountains etc.

Road to leh

Soft pastel painting on Canson paper

Size 6" X  9"

Komic village

Soft pastel painting on Canson paper

Size 6" X  9"

My pastel palette

Which has broken pastels from different brands.

Both the above paintings have been submitted in the DPW challenge

I have a Two days soft pastel workshop coming up soon and thats

another reason for getting into a few pastel works.

My works can also be viewed on my FACEBOOK page.

Papers I use for soft pastel paintings - Canson Mi Teintes and Fabriano Tiziano

When I initially started my soft pastel art I had just one choice of Fabriano Elle Erre paper which has parallel lines running across on its textured side. I was pretty happy then as I had not known any other papers by then and I went on to create lot of works on it.

Much later I came across Canson Mi Teintes paper and I was glad that it is available in India. Presently I buy my Canson papers from ART LOUNGE which is situated close to Churchgate station ( MUMBAI ). This paper comes in many different colours, from pastel shades to very dark ones. Canson paper was so much better than Elle erre paper that I decided to continue with just this paper.

Canson Mi Teintes has two sides and both of them can be used depending on what suits one's work. One side has smooth textured surface and the other side has a rough or honeycombed texture on it. Depending on what is the subject and the requirement one can use either of the sides. Though for most of my works I prefer the smooth surface.

Canson Mi Teintes paper

Rough textured side of the paper

Canson Mi Teintes

Smooth side of the paper

Sometime last year I read the reviews about Fabriano Tiziano paper and FLIPKART happened to be selling it. So I ordered 2 pads of 14" x 16" paper. ( black colour ). After having used it I did not regret spending on it as it turned out pretty good. Just as Canson has two different textures on its two sides, Fabriano too has a rough and a smooth side. I prefer to use the smooth side for my landscapes.

Study sketches of landscapes from Himachal Pradesh

Soft pastels is a great medium to work with and one can easily get addicted to using them. I had decided some time back to shift to acrylics on canvas but then changed my mind as I am enjoying my recent works based on my visit to Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh. I have a whole lot of reference material in the form of photographs and sketches that I created on location and the places there are so amazing that I cannot resist myself from painting them.

Given below are images of some study sketches that I created on canson paper sized 3" x 4". I create a whole lot of study sketches but I do not necessarily enlarge all of them into actual paintings. I get selective. The ones which appeal a whole lot to me in terms of composition and right values become the reference as my next subject for a bigger painting which normally by my standard is 6" x 9".

Study sketches of landscapes from Spiti valley of Himachal Pradesh

As I stated above I may not use all my sketches to create bigger works, however I take care to preserve all of them in a folder by protecting each of them with a butter paper in between so as to avoid smudging of pastels. Sometime in future you never know, one of them may come in use.

My Fourth Solo Art Exhibition at Gallerie Leela 22nd May to 28th May

Everyone is invited to my

Fourth Solo Art Exhibition  at Gallerie Leela ,

The Leela Kempinski, Andheri East.

where I will be exhibiting

some of my favourite paintings as created in the past few months

Influenced and Inspired by the eternal beauty of Nature.

Medium : Soft pastels and Charcoals.

Created the invitation using Moldiv app on my i pad

You can click on the above link to see a video which shows the use of Moldiv App. 

( COURTESY You tube )

Making small corrections in old art works before framing

Soft pastel paintings have an advantage. If one needs to make changes at a later stage, it is a fairly simple procedure. One can lift out the pastels from the required space using kneaded eraser or putty and add another layer of colour there.

Now that I am in the process of framing my artworks, I realised that some works needed a little touch up. For example if i did a painting some months back then in the next few months I have more added knowledge now and I can see lot of places where I can add colours to increase the depth or intensify the colour of leaves etc. It is like I am getting to reevaluate my work. So basically apart from framing, I am also spending time doing little corrections.

Given below are two of my works where I made a few corrections. ( These works have been posted earlier by me. Since they were not framed I had placed them in a folder with a glassine sheet on top of it for protection )

In this particular work, which was done using a photograph taken from a lower

In this particular painting, the foreground did not have any warmth. The tree trunk had blended with the foliage on the left side and the light falling had to be captured on the foliage. So I intensified the colours behind the tree, then added soft light green colours on leaves which were exposed to the sunlight falling on them. I also added blue green coloured leaves behind the tree trunk as it is in shadow region. After having made a few more changes, I am now pretty satisfied and will frame this work with off white matt around it.

Using off white matt board around the artwork.

Finally started the framing process. Decided to use the off white matt board as it is a neutral colour and it enhances the colours of the painting within. The width of the matt board is two inches all around the painting. The matt board is of superior quality and is acid free in nature. The width of the frame is around half an inch and is made of fibreboard ( lightweight ).

Size of painting is 6" X 9". The photograph is taken after framing and since the framing is protected under glass, you may find some reflections on it.

Two framed paintings.

Edited photographs to be used as references for next few soft pastel paintings

The first step to creating a painting is selection of the next subject. The selection gets more complicated when there is a huge collection of photographs at your disposal. Hence I normally sit at night some day when I am not tired and then I go through my folder of different photographs. As a general rule I select four to five at a time and then get on to edit them.

Once editing is done as per the composition and light/contrast ratio that I want I save the images on my i pad for future use. Many a times it so happens that do not really use all the edited versions of my photographs. If I find something more meaningful and interesting then I suddenly change my mind. Its all upon the mood.

Most of these photographs as below are taken during our holiday trip to Matheran, a beautiful hill station.

One of them is from Karnala Bird Sanctuary.

Few edited photographs for future use as reference to

create soft pastel paintings.

When I use my own photos as reference it helps a lot as I have been to these places and I can relate to them. I know exactly the atmosphere as it was on that particular day and it helps to manage the colours well even if they have not been captured well by the camera. Its what I have seen that I want to paint. Nature is one of the most inspiring factors in my present art creations.

Finally, new header for my BLOG

Completed almost eight months of blogging and I am enjoying every moment of it. Decided to Change the header  by including some of my latest works, which includes trees and landscapes.

My old header as shown below.

Created the new header as shown below using PicCollage. Individual images edited using Aviary App.

Landscape in soft pastels by Manju Panchal

Created a simple landscape as a study work. Used both Mungyo and KOH-I-NOOR soft pastels. Meanwhile my tree sketches are on. The original photograph had a very few trees on the right and the tree foliage too was scattered but I manipulated the photo and added elements that I thought would enhance the beauty of the landscape. I have not spent a whole lot of time doing the details as I was more interested in getting the perspective right and wanted to put the right values at the right place. 

Light at the end

Landscape painting in soft pastels

Since this is a study work I have used a black coloured rough textured paper. The soft pastel technique that I generally use in creating a landscape is both blending and strokes. Since it is a small work and the paper quality seemed to be quite good, I did not feel the need to use fixatives. 

Two more thumbnail sketches done in soft pastels

The two days soft pastel painting workshop ended today. Had loads of fun. Lots of art talk and sharing of ideas. In all the excitement forgot to click photos of some of the paintings. But whatever taken, will be posting it tomorrow. It was a small group and all were art enthusiasts which charged up the atmosphere and the painting was a lot of pleasure.

In the meanwhile, managed to take out my old thumbnail sketches and retouched them with soft pastels. Was very keen on doing a night scene , hence remember having selected the Eiffel Tower. Doing a small work has its own charm. 

Two thumbnail sketches.

A mountain landscape and

Eiffel Tower

Soft pastel paintings - Thumbnail sketches of two Landscapes by Manju Panchal

Presently busy with my two days SOFT PASTEL WORKSHOP.

Took out time to have a look at a whole lot of thumbnail sketches done about a year back. Removed a few and added colours. The soft pastels used are a mix of MUNGYO and KOH-I-NOOR.

Never get tired of doing thumbnail sketches. It is a good study of values, perspective and composition. Basically they are quick study works and a reference for a bigger work.
Both the soft pastel thumbail sketches are of size 3.5" X 5". Small enough to go in my old album for storage.

Two thumbnail sketches

A forest

A river with reflections.

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.