Sketching a leaf using charcoal and white pastel pencil

I work a lot with Canson Mi Teintes paper. Apart from soft pastels, its surface is ideal for charcoal and white pastel sketching. I buy these sheets in bulk and then cut out the size as required, which leads to lots of leftover pieces in different sizes. Hence I use these "Leftover cutout pieces" for my different experimental and study works. I keep them all safe in a folder so that I can retrieve it as and when required.

Using one such small piece of beige coloured Canson Mi Teintes paper I created a leaf along with its shadow as seen below. It is a simple dry leaf folded and raised at one end. However due to the drying up process it has folds at several places. This leads to dramatic shadow formation at the surface which gives one the opportunity to create the folds within the leaf. It is a small sketch but a great source of learning experience.

In the shadow

Charcoal and white pastel pencil sketch on Canson Mi Teintes paper

Size 4.5" X 6"

This is my third sketch in the " Leaf "  series. I created two of them earlier. CLICK HERE to view one of them.

 A beautiful quote.

" There is no greater harm than that of time wasted." Michelangelo

Strathmore 200 series drawing paper

One of my close artist friends has used the Strathmore series for her art work and she recommended me to use some of the papers created by this brand.

Therefore I started with a small charcoal painting on the Strathmore 200 series drawing paper.

It is a pad with 40 acid free white sheets in it.

Strathmore 200 series drawing paper

The subject I selected is a beautiful, quiet morning scene from Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary which we visited some years back. The still waters with reflections of the trees and bushes made for a great composition. Before starting on the charcoal painting, I cropped the photograph that I used in order to get a better composition. In this particular photo the horizon line was running through the centre. So I decided to keep more of the sky with the trees on either side.

Reflections

Charcoal sketching on Strathmore paper.

Size 5.5" X 7"

After having used Canson c a grain and Fabriano Academia, I was quite settled for my choice of paper. However after using Strathmore, I am quite positive about using it in future too. This paper has a very smooth texture and the charcoal fixes pretty easily on to the paper. The blending and scumbling too was quite a pleasure. In all I find this paper very satisfying.

My signature can be seen on the extreme right bottom.