Exposed roots of a tree - in charcoal and white pastel

I was to start a soft pastel painting of a landscape but at times due to personal commitments it is not always possible to devote sufficient time to art. But since I am a lot addicted to painting/sketching everyday, the next best option that I find very relaxing is doing a small study work. It takes roughly an hour or so and the feeling of having done some art work is absolutely great.

Today being one such day, I decided to do a tree study on beige coloured Canson mi tentes paper using charcoal pencil and white GENERAL soft pastel pencil. The beige colour of the paper acts as the midtone. Willow charcoal too has been used at places in the initial layers.

Small study work done in an hour

Exposed roots of a tree sketched on Canson Mi Tentes paper

©Manju Panchal

Charcoal and Pastel painting of a bird on Canson paper

I had this beautiful photograph of a bird sitting outside our HOMESTAY in Coorg , with a confident pose and attitude. Being a bright sunlit day the shadow of the bird on the tiled ground surface had sharp edges and on the whole the picture made for a good composition. Not finding enough time to do it in colours, I decided to render it in charcoal and white pastel pencil.

I have used Camel soft charcoal pencil and General's white pastel pencil to create this painting on Canson mi Tentes paper.

Attitude

Charcoal and soft pastel painting on Canson Paper

© Manju Panchal

Still life painting - Metallic jug ( charcoal and soft pastel work )

Since I am running out of subjects for doing my still life composition, these days I have made it a habit to carry my i pad when I visit a friend. On one such visit, a water jug caught my attention and I immediately decided to take a photo. Keeping it on a distant shoe rack, where there was good light and shadow display, I clicked a few images. Later at home, did a bit of editing and then used a grey ordinary chart paper to create the charcoal and soft pastel sketching as shown below.

The Jug made of steel did not have a very smooth finish. Hence the technique I have used here is more of scribbling to get the light and dark tones. The grey colour of the paper acts as the mid tone.

A Jug

Charcoal and white soft pastel painting on grey paper

I have created similar works on grey paper earlier and but most of them were very small works of art, mainly my study works. More like my thumbnail sketches. You can find them in my previous posts if you browse through all my works beginning from January. I shall be completing eight months of blogging by August end.

Blogging is helping me paint my life with colours.