Experimenting with water colour medium in my new sketch book

New sketch book.

On my recent visit to "Art Station" the art stationery shop, a new sketch book caught my eye and I decided to purchase it. It has 4" X 5.5" cartridge sheets and is slightly different from my previous sketch book which I have been using all this while. It is in my nature to try out something new. It is very exciting and it brings about a change in the otherwise mundane routine.

Sketch books are fun as I get to experiment and explore while creating small little works in a short period of time. I was not much of a sketch book person earlier. It is only much later that I got inspired by this "Idea" which was being so much talked about by many other artists around the world. As of now I am addicted to scribbling, sketching and creating lot many odd works in my sketchbook. Some days when I am doing nothing I just sit back and relax, browsing through one of my old sketchbooks which stirs beautiful memories related to all the work that I created in the past.

Given below is the image of my new sketch book and a few paintings that I created. Each painting that I chose to do was with a specific purpose in mind ( As mentioned below each work ). The time spent on each of them was anything between fifteen to twenty minutes. I also write a small note underneath each of my work with respect to technique or some new lesson that I learnt while creating it. 

New Sketch book.

Trying out the painting of a Door

Experimenting with warm sky

Understanding the background ( hazy look )

The mountains and lake

Trying out some simple technique

to create a forest scene

Understanding the difference between the 

background and the foreground.

The last two study works are created using my photographs which I clicked using my mobile camera while I was at Karnala Bird Sanctuary with my family members. These small studies help me a lot in understanding the steps that I will follow in future to recreate this scene on a large paper. 

I am also posting below an image of my water colour palette which looks real messy but I manage to find all my colours in it. I clean up the bigger pockets before mixing a new colour in it. All colours in the palette are from Camlin artists water colour tubes.

Water colour palette.

A beautiful quote that I came across recently and really loved it. 

"It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few seconds." - Paula Scher

Few more Thumbnail sketches of Landscapes and trees

Painting every single piece of art is a journey in itself. It starts with the visit to a beautiful place.
Then I capture the most breathtaking views in my mind as well as the camera. I make all my
observations pertaining to the colours, atmospsheric perspective, etc. Many a times I squint my
eyes to gauge the right values. Seeing and observing well helps me in rendering the right
colours to get the feel of the atmosphere.

It is much later some day when I am browsing through my photographs that I take the decision
to finally go ahead and create the painting and to capture my memories on paper. Then starts
the process of creating a Thumbnail Sketch followed by the Actual painting.

What I enjoy the most is the entire procedure or the steps involved in creating every single
painting. I do it loosely and with a free mind not worrying about how the painting will
eventually look in the end. Not every painting meets my expectations. I make mistakes and I personally that these mistakes help me learn better because it gets me "Thinking". I reevaluate
my technique and colour theory and try to analyse how and where I went wrong?

In conclusion Every painting that I create makes me "Experiment and Explore" and the whole
journey of art is a thrilling experience. Given below are some more of my recently done
thumbnail sketches using soft pastels.

Thumbnail sketches from

Himachal, Phuket and Coorg.

" We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to."  Terri Swearingen.

I came across this beautiful quote recently which is so inspiring. We all need to make a 

collective effort to save trees and to maintain the beauty of the nature. When I am travelling,

I come across some amazingly beautiful old trees and I do not miss out the opportunity

to sketch it out or capture it in the Camera. In the above collection of Thumbnail sketches

I have done some study works of trees too and hopefully soon I plan to create some artworks

referring to them.

A little experimenting with textured handmade paper.

I mentioned in my last post about experimenting and exploring the new possibilities of using

the textured hand made paper ( From Sun Papers - Fort ) for my soft pastel paintings.

The soft pastel painting of a seascape is a quick study work on blue coloured hand made

paper with beautiful textures on it. I wanted to try out the underpainting with water 

before adding the second layer of pastels.

After having drawn the rough outline with white pencil, I blocked in the initial colours in 

my usual technique and then instead of blending the colours I ran a wet brush over the sky, 

followed by the other elements. Everytime I painted on a different coloured area, I made 

sure that I washed the brush again in clean water. After having done that, I let the paper 

dry. The paper being thick, fortunately did not buckle.

Once the paper was fully dry, I added the second layer of pastel colours and a few details 

at places where required. In all I enjoyed using this paper. It is very reasonable too. I 

purchased it long time back but I think it should not be more than Rs 60/- a sheet.

Seascape on Blue handmade paper.

Just an experiment.

I love soft pastel medium because of its rich and vibrant colours. Moreover it is a dry

medium and one does not have to wait for it to dry. We do not need many tools around.

Just the pastels, a kneaded eraser and a sheet of paper. 

The pastel colours do not fade or crack in time. I do not have to worry about the painting

catching fungus though I still take precaution to keep Silica Gel around

my art work to absorb the moisture around.

One of my favourite Quotes

"I dream my painting and then I paint my dream." Vincent Van Gogh