Graphite pencil drawings in my new sketch book

"It takes 25 years to learn to draw, one hour to learn to paint." 

 Jean-Auguste-Dominique-Ingres

Last month when I was travelling I decided to carry a "Small art stationery travel kit". This kit consisted of  my routine blank sketch book, HB pencil and a 10B pencil along with a kneaded eraser. The plan was to get back to sketching and drawing in graphite medium. 

Did the plan work? Absolutely. In fact I have realised that for any plan to work, we have to make it work. It won't ever happen on its own. At times I have to push myself . Once I get started, the momentum picks up and then I start enjoying the whole experience. I am getting back into graphite medium after a long long time and no regrets. I am loving it.

I started off with a landscape and then went on to do few more interesting subjects using both the Camlin HB and the 10B pencil. The travel kit was small and convenient and and getting back to graphite drawing was a rejuvenating experience. 

Pencil drawing and sketching
in sketch book with 4" X 5.5" cartridge sheets

Tree trunk

Snow capped mountains in the distance

A pear in sunlight

A garlic clove

The sketch book 
with 40 cartridge sheets.

The sketch book is small, lightweight and easy to carry. It has forty cartridge sheets sized 4"X 5.5". After every sketching and drawing, ( Each drawing takes roughly fifteen to twenty minutes ) I make it a point to mention the date and a little remark underneath so that some day in future when I browse through this book it will remind me of my little experiments and stories connected with each work.

By now I have a big collection of these small books and each of them is specifically for a different kind of artwork. Like there is one exclusively for my portrait studies and there is another purely for my water colour works. Therefore as and when I take a break from my "Normal daily painting routine" I turn to one of my sketch books to try out some new idea, some new medium or simply drawing and sketching.

I have been working a lot in charcoal medium lately and some of my "Soft pastel works" have been left unattended. They are half way through and so next thing I am planning is to focus on completing them. My "Two days soft pastel workshop" is coming up this weekend and I am pretty excited about it as I will get to meet new participants. Interacting with others who are as passionate about art as you are is very inspiring. I always look forward to having my workshops.

Preparing for water colour seashore paintings

After having done a few landscape paintings of Himachal where in I got to work on mountains and rocks, I now decided to explore the beaches which is my all time favourite subject.

Therefore I created few water colour study sketches with a difference. Different because I initially created the tonal sketch in my Art Sketch Book using ordinary HB pencil and then later ran my water colour brush over it. So it served twofold purpose. It helped me understand the tonal values as well as the watercolour techniques.

Given below are the images of few of my small works sized 4" X 5". I have also started writing few notes under each completed work regarding the colour scheme or technique used in that particular art work. So later when I browse through my older works, it can be a great reminder of the exploring and experimenting that I did in the past.

Water colour study works of seascapes

in my cartridge sheet sketch book.

I have randomly selected different scenes so as to handle different elements and have also tried to focus on a good composition. I particularly enjoyed the colour scheme that I experimented with in the first painting with the lighthouse.