Kalatop Wildlife Sanctuary - A soft pastel painting

"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

Blessed with enchanting beauty, Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh is built on and around five hills. Eight kilometres from here, is a beautiful wildlife sanctuary, the Kalatop Wildlife Sanctuary which is covered with thick forests of pine and deodhar trees. The undergrowth in the forest is well developed and the view all around is mesmerising. The forest has well laid out trekking trails for those who are the adventurous kind. I was more interested in walking around and soaking in the beauty of the surroundings.

The soft pastel painting of one of the scenes that captured my heart is as below. I have also added images of the step by step technique that I followed before I reached the final stage.  

Kalatop Wildlife Sanctuary

Soft pastel painting on Canson MT paper

Size 6" X 8"

Step 1. Basic outline and adding a few colours

Step 2. Simplifying the shapes keeping in mind the perspective

Step 3. Almost all the colours are laid down and only

detailing left for the final stage.

To know more about the papers that I use for my pastel artworks you can CLICK HERE.  I have not created a post on the pastel brands that I use, but plan to do so very soon. I have a miscellaneous collection that I purchased over the past five years. By now I know the individual shades of each brand that I use the most and hence I have created a palette where in I organise all my pastels together ie a mix of different brands. The turquoise blue that I use in ocean is not available in the Koh-I-Noor Toison Dor and similarly the violet shade which is predominant in most of my works is a part of Mungyo collection. In conclusion, every brand has its own value and I enjoy using them together as it works well with my artworks.

Thanks a lot for browsing through my artworks.

Step by step drawing and painting - A seashore

"When you start a painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting." Fernando Botero

Painting to me is a vision, a thought process, an idea that develops in the mind and then takes shape on a piece of paper. I paint a scene from nature, inspired by its beauty.

The scene below is from Bamboo island, five kiloimetres off the northern tip of Koh Phi Phi Don, in the Krabi province of Thailand. The island has stunning beaches with beautiful rocks, white sand and limestone cliffs behind. In the painting below the beach is covered by the shadows cast by the tall cliffs behind. The source of light ie the sun is behind the cliffs and the beach is on the west side of the island.

I decided on this scene as it gave me the opportunity to work on perspective, rocks and waves hitting the shore. Moreover this scene has a very interesting design and composition.

Reaching the destination

Soft pastel painting on Canson MT paper

Size 6" X 8"

I titled the painting as "Reaching the destination" with reference to the beautiful waves which travel a long distance and finally reach the shore. It is a beautiful feeling to be at a place like this and to hear the sound of the waves splashing against the rocks, and then gently kissing the white sand and merging with the land.

The soft pastel painting on twilight Canson MT progressed in stages and the step by step images can be seen below. Its a small sized painting so I did not use my Easel. My table is my workplace.

Step 1. Creating the basic outline

using Camlin charcoal pencil.

Step 2. Blocking in the major shapes with respective colours

 keeping in mind the values. Using the soft pastels

from mixed brands.

Step 3. Adding details and final touch up.

At this stage I use pastel pencils at several places.

Of late I have started uploading my works on INSTAGRAM and I find it very convenient to do so as most of the paintings are photographed and edited on ipad itself. I am beginning to like Instagram as it helps one to browse through all my works in a Gallery format. 

My Blog has completed a little more than three years and it has recently crossed  50,000 page views. It makes me happy, although having more page views was never the "Goal" when I started blogging. Blogging happened, because I wanted to keep myself focused in my artwork and grow as an artist. It also provided me with a virtual workplace where I could upload and maintain a record of my artworks. It has been a beautiful journey and I shall write a detailed post on my "Art Blogging" soon. 

Thanks to everyone who has been part of this journey and I truly appreciate the support provided by all of you. 

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?

From photograph to thumbnail sketches - soft pastel medium

Most of my landscape paintings are inspired by NATURE.

Over a period of years, I have shortlisted a whole lot of photographs for my future artworks.
The intention is to create Landscape paintings as and when I get time. Therefore I decided to
create a series of thumbnail sketches which will help me visualize the final outcome as
the painting will look on completion.

Thumbnail sketch or study sketch is "The most important deciding factor for me" to go ahead
with the final painting procedure. I have used charcoal and water colour medium too for
creating these small study works but this time around I have used only soft pastels. The size
is more or less, always 4" X 5".

Given below are four thumbnail sketches created by referring to photographs taken by me
on different locations.

Thumbnail sketches

Created on Fabriano Elle erre paper

and Canson Mi Teintes paper.

After completing the thumbnail sketches, I analyse the final colours, values, composition etc

which helps me to decide whether to go ahead with the painting or redo the thumbnail sketch

by making the required changes. 

The upper two sketches turned out fine as planned in the mind but the lower two were a bit complicated scenes with a whole lot of overlapping elements. So the technique and steps that I followed did not quite work out. Therefore I may have to redo the lower two by following a totally different plan altogether. The photographs that I referred to for the lower two thumbnail sketches

are as below. They are from LANGKAWI island ( Malaysia ) and I am definitely planning

to do both these landscapes some day in my style.

Two landscape photographs from Langkawi ( Malaysia )

Creating thumbnail sketches, I feel, has brought about a lot of discipline in my art journey.
I was inspired to do so after seeing many other artists doing the same. My personal
experience also taught me that whenever I went ahead with a large sized artwork
without a preliminary study, the painting either got ruined or did not turn out
satisfactory.

Reflections in the water - soft pastel work

One of my favourite photographs taken at Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary. It has been on my laptop since last year or so. I finally decided to give it a try in my way. I started off by selecting the black coloured Canson Mi Teintes paper. I started off by simplifying the bigger shapes and coloured 

them as a whole using the soft pastel medium. Blended the colours using my fingers. 

Then I fixed the layer with Winsor and Newton fixative.

In the second layer I added the tree trunks, foliage and other details. Signed at the bottom left 

with a white pastel pencil. I have also made use of the black charcoal pencil at places especially

to create the thin branches.

Solitude

Soft pastel painting on Canson Mi Teintes paper

Size 6" X 9"

What is most challenging in any forest landscape is the greens. No matter how many shades 

you have, you still fall short of the right shade. Unlike water colours, oils and acrylics

it is not easy to get the green shades by mixing different colours. Moreover with

my past experience I know for sure that if I use more than two colours on each

other it creates a muddy effect and the freshness of the colour fades away.

I have created a few more small Demo works in soft pastel medium and I shall

be posting them soon.

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.

Portrait study - Charcoal and white pastel sketching

"Even when you paint, you never stop drawing." Igor Babailov

My today's post is a portrait drawing on toned paper. The paper that I am using is Canson Mi Teintes. This paper has great texture and works good for me. It comes in many different colours but I love the dark gray a lot for my charcoal and white pastel pencil drawings like the one as given below.

For my present portrait drawing I have used Camlin and Conte A Paris charcoal pencil. For the lighter tones I have made use of General white pastel pencil. 

Portrait study work
Size 5"X 7"

Portrait drawing is a very challenging subject as compared to landscapes and others, however it is very satisfying experience too. 

Thank you for visiting my blog and you can browse through my works on my INSTAGRAM page too.

Painting landscapes in water colour medium

The more I paint in water colour medium the more I fall in love with it. 

Given below are two different water colour paintings. After having tried out seascapes, I decided to select photographs with snow capped mountains. Both the scenes are from Himachal Pradesh. I have once again used Canson Montwal paper for both the paintings.

Towards the snow

water colour painting on Canson paper

Size 5" X 7"

Beyond the hills

water colour painting on Canson paper

Size 5" X 7"

Three steps to creating a charcoal study work ( Travel sketch book )

As mentioned in my earlier posts I am regularly creating small study sketches in
charcoal medium. This time around I decided to share it on my blog. I have put three images
of my charcoal sketch which were taken as the sketching progressed.

The size is 4" X 5", paper used is Canson c a grain and the subject chosen is my all time favourite "Tree Trunk"

Three steps to creating a Charcoal study work

In the first image I have rubbed the willow charcoal by laying it flat on the paper and then using my finger I spread it uniformly all over to create a mid tone grey value. Then using a Camel soft charcoal pencil I created faint outline of the basic shape of the tree trunk.

In the second image, I added shadows on the tree trunk and lifted charcoal from certain areas to create highlights. I also used the kneaded eraser to create few leaves.

In the final image I added a few details on the tree trunk and added more foliage on the tree using scumbling effect as created by Camel pencil. The leaves receiving the light from left, were created by lifting out the charcoal using kneaded eraser.

The tools used to create the above sketching.

How to use the kneaded eraser? Watch the VIDEO

Courtesy : Youtube

Using willow charcoal to create foliage

The scenes below are from Langkawi, Malaysia. We were at this beach Pantal Pasir Hitam, also called the Black Sand Beach, located about two kms to the west of Tanjung Rhu beach. This is a very peaceful stretch of beach stained with black sand. The colour is owing to mineral contents in the sand such as iron oxide.

Both the photographs which I took while at the beach, are my favourites. As an artist when I take a photograph it is always with the intention of painting the scene some day. Some scene just strikes a chord and the composition seems just perfect.

While on a holiday at times we are just rushing from one place to another and it is not always possible to create a study sketch on the spot. Hence the next best thing to do is use the photograph.

I chose these two photographs mainly because of the contrast, the light and the dark. It gave me an opportunity to use the willow charcoal to create the dark foliage against the light background

Hitting the shore

Charcoal painting

Size 6" x 8"

Faraway
Charcoal painting
Size 5" x 7"

Quote : " Learning never exhausts the mind." by Leonardo da Vinci

Very inspiring quote and I continue to learn by my day to day art endeavours and experiments. 

Trying out a different coloured Canson Mi Teintes paper

Of late I have been creating soft pastel paintings on either black or other dark coloured paper.This time I decided to try out beige coloured Canson Mi Tentes paper. This is a scene from Mahableshwar, a hill station close to Mumbai and Pune. The lush greenery, the winding roads, and the beautiful view around is mesmerising.

Light at the distance

Soft pastel painting on Canson paper

Size 8" x 12"

I have used a white pastel pencil for signature on bottom left of the painting. Last week I picked up few soft pastel KOH-I-NOOR pencils from ART LOUNGE as it was running its annual sale. Sometimes I need to create thin branches in my landscape and I will see if pencils can be of use.

KOHINOOR soft pastel pencils

To know more about KOHINOOR art products you can visit their site

www.koh-i-noor.cz 

Perched on the tree - another charcoal painting.

Another bird done in charcoal. From my old collection. When I initially started working in

Charcoal, I used only Scholar drawing paper. Much later I experimented with other papers

and presently I use Canson ca grain a lot.

Looking around.

Charcoal sketching on scholar drawing paper