Creating and storing Thumbnail sketches

"Good drawing forms the 'bones' on which a strong painting hangs." Chris Bingle

My blogging has taken a backseat. I am busy creating several thumbnail sketches or studyworks

so that I can start a fresh series of "ARTWORKS". Posting individual sketch can be a tedious task.

Therefore I group some of them together after editing, which makes blogging more convenient.

As I mentioned in my previous post, only some of my study sketches get converted into serious

artwork. In the sketches below there are scenes from Iceland, Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, Panchgani and Phi Phi Leh. 

Four out of six of these painting have appealed to me with respect to composition and colours so I may go ahead and paint them soon on black Canson Mi Teintes paper.

Thumbnail sketches or Study sketches of Landscapes

on Canson Mi Teintes paper

Size 3.5" X 4.5"

I have been painting for several years now and "Thumbnail sketches" was not part of my routine until the year 2014. Slowly and steadily as I worked my way up the ladder, I realised that spending

a few minutes at creating a preliminary sketch takes care of lot of issues and helps the

final art piece to reach its desired stage. In other words nine out of my ten works reach completion.

Storing thumbnail sketches was a big concern in the beginning. So I came up with the idea of

using my old "Photo Albums". It worked really well for me.

Old Photo Albums

for storing Thumbnail sketches.

After completing the sketch I normally lift the polythene sheet carefully and then slide the 

painting inside from the open side. As the sketch is created in soft pastels, there is always a 

chance of its getting smudged, however the smudging is negligible and it can be easily

corrected if required. 

I have posted below two images of some of my initial study works in 2014when I was deeply 

into landscape study. It is a pleasure at times to go through some of the past works. 

Old Photo Albums, now used for storing

my Thumbnail sketches created in

Soft pastel medium.

Thanks for visiting my blog and browsing through my works. Do leave a comment to let me know how you store your artworks?

Storing of water colour and charcoal paintings - My way

Considering the fact that I paint almost every day, I am always thinking of new ways of storing my miscellaneous works. Miscellaneous because some are study works, others are thumbnail sketches. Then there are small pastel paintings, mini water colour paintings and finally my BIGGER serious works which I have been creating with an intention of selling them.

Mini Water colour paintings

My mini water colour works are fortunately all stored in the sketch book created by me. So thats a big relief. This book created by me has forty handmade papers in it. Once I complete my forty paintings, I might probably create another one as this is a very convenient way of pursuing one's water colour painting passion.

Bigger water colour painitngs ( Size 4" X 7"  or 7" X 9" )

Taking advantage of the fact that water colour paintings do no smudge I conveniently put them all together in a plastic folder making sure that it is placed in a safe and dry place.

Small Charcoal paintings

Since I regularly take two days workshop in different mediums, I also have a collection of small charcoal works. Charcoal paintings, I have realised , do not smudge as much as pastel paintings, hence I have purchased a big number of self sealing polythene sheets and I carefully slide my small charcoal painting inside the packet. ( sealing from other side ). If at all there is a need to frame any of my works, I would probably remove it and do a little touch up. I never spray a fixative on my charcoal painting as I do not feel the need to do so. The paper I use is good enough for the charcoal to get fixed on.

self sealing polythene packet

A. point where there is a small strip which can be pulled out to seal the packet

by pulling it over to the other side.

Charcoal paintings as protected in self sealing packets.

Plastic folder to store small charcoal paintings which are individually

placed in self sealing polythene packets.

Regarding art works that are much bigger and done in different mediums, I shall be writing a post soon.

Keep browsing and thanks for visiting my blog.