The snow peaked mountains as seen from Kalpa ( Himachal Pradesh )

At an elevation of 2960 mts above sea level, Kalpa is a beautiful town in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. This town is located at the base of Kinnaur Kailash snow capped ranges.
The spectacular view of the cold desert mountains from Kalpa is absolutely amazing.

I have made an attempt to make a soft pastel painting referring to one such scene from Kalpa that was visible from our Hotel. The photograph that I used was pretty washed out version, but since I was there and I have seen it all, I added the colours keeping in mind the values and the aerial perspective.

View from Kalpa

Soft pastel painting on canson paper

Size 6" x 9"

I photographed the painting along with the mat board. Now it needs a glass on the top before framing it using a fibreboard frame.

Yet another Chitkul Landscape in soft pastels

When I am using my Himachal photograph as a reference I know for sure that I am getting the experience of doing rocks and boulders. Its a different terrain altogether. The roads are winding, and suddenly you come across a big boulder at the periphery as seen below. The plants, the vegetation growing around , all add to the beauty of the atmosphere. This particular landscape is from CHITKUL, a small beautiful town in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. ( Near the Indo -Tibet border ).

 In this particular landscape photograph there was a huge tree in the background but I avoided doing it in order to have a better composition. It was the month of June, the weather was chilly and I remember stopping after every few minutes to soak in the beauty of nature and to click photographs. No matter which side you looked and at what angle, there was something breathtaking which you did not want to miss out. I have many more photographs in my collection, and it becomes a difficult decision to select the next subject as many of them are pretty complicated with rocks, trees, water flowing etc etc. But I plan to do them all one at a time. 

Boulder at the edge

Soft pastel painting on Fabriano paper

The road leading to Spiti Valley - A soft pastel painting

The painting below is a reminder of the narrow roads that we took to reach beautiful heavenly places in SPITI valley. ( Himachal Pradesh ). Places like Nako, Tabo and Kaza which many people are still unaware of. Its a harsh terrain and after every few kilometres one comes across a very different mountain range with unique textures, colours and some unbelievable patterns. The breathtaking view at every turn of the road kept us in suspense and it was a pleasure to capture the moments in Camera. It was a quiet journey as not many tourists go beyond Kinnaur district.You do not get to see too many vehicles on the road too.

Its time to do a few landscapes with mountains and rocks. I loved creating this soft pastel painting. Did not want to miss out the details as can be seen on the road. The rides were bumpy and not very comfortable as the roads from Kinnaur onwards are not in a good shape.

          

Moving on

Soft Pastel Painting on Fabriano paper

The morning glow - Soft pastel painting from my reference photogdraph

While we were in Coorg in May 2010, we stayed in a beautiful Homestay which was built on a small hill from where we had a great all around. Basically the Homestay was part of five acre coffee plantation which had whole lot of other trees too growing there. To get to the coffee plantations we had to climb on few rocky steps and dry bushes and once there we walked around looking for subjects to photograph. Insects, birds, dry leaves, the landscape around in general.

The soft pastel painting below is of the pathway which led to the coffee plantations and the morning glow through the dried bushes was captured by my son. I have cropped the photograph to get a good composition. I enjoyed doing this particular painting and spent a little longer time than usual as it had some new elements in it to be tackled.

The Morning Glow

Soft Pastel Painitng

© Manju Panchal

Back to my Coorg Landscape painting - soft pastel work

The scene below is yet from another of my COORG ( Madikeri ) photographs. We would set out for our morning walks with simple digital camera in hand, exploring the muddy pathways, spotting the birds, butterflies, insects etc. It was such a pleasure. Each road had something different to offer. 

I have been looking at these very photographs but somehow earlier I never saw the prospect of converting it into a painting but now that I am doing a whole lot of landscapes, I find my subject more easily. Some very simple landscapes with bushes, twigs, fallen leaves etc can make for a beautiful art work. My struggle with the greens continue and I wish to buy a set of pastels with probably 48 shades of just GREENS in them.

The Muddy pathway

Soft Pastel Painting on white Fabriano Tiziano paper

© Manju Panchal