Drawing a forest scene in charcoal medium

"Art is a line around your thoughts." Gustav Klimt

We were at Karnala Bird Sanctuary when I came across this scene, a pathway leading deeper into the woods. The sun rays  lit up the trees and the foliage in the distance. The composition looked good to me and I decided to capture it on a paper using my interpretation.

I have used willow charcoal and charcoal powder to blend in the background and later used Camlin and other charcoal pencils to create a few details in the mid-ground. Creating a charcoal work is a  great way of doing value study which helps me a lot in creating a coloured painting later. As many other artists say, I too have strongly started believing in the fact that "Value is more important than colour."

Walk in the woods

A charcoal drawing on Canson Mi Teintes paper

Size 6"X 8"

Half way through the painting, I suddenly remembered to click a photograph of the drawing while it was still in progress. So the image below shows the initial block in stage where in I have simplified the large shapes and created the basic foundation. I have used kneaded eraser to lift out the charcoal from the paper. 

Initial stage of the charcoal drawing

Using willow charcoal, Camlin charcoal pencil and kneaded eraser

 "Fog at the distance" and "Monsoon at Malshej Ghats" are my two other paintings which I have recently created on Canson Mi Teintes paper. This paper grips the charcoal powder pretty well on its sanded surface. I use the smoother side of the paper for my drawings. 

On the 22nd of December I was invited to judge one of the Fine art competitions at MOOD INDIGO Festival, hosted by IIT, Bombay. The event was titled "MONOSTROKES"  and the participants had to create a sketch using the different grades of graphite and charcoal pencils provided to them. 

MOOD INDIGO is the annual cultural festival of Mumbai and the largest in Asia. It attracts a whopping crowd of 1,39,000 students from more than 1700 colleges nationwide. It was an honor to judge this event and a great experience too. I am looking forward to attending more of such events in future too. 

Thank you for visiting my blog and browsing through my artworks.

Painting a forest scene in soft pastel medium

"The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth." Ezra Pound ( Courtesy: skinnyartist.com )

The paper that I use most often for my soft pastel works is "Canson Mi Teintes" which fortunately comes in assorted colours. This works as an advantage because choosing the right colour for the subject makes a lot of difference. To know more about the different shades and its specific names you can visit the site DICKBLICK. I normally use Twilight, Tobacco, Sand and Moonstone but I am open to experimenting and exploring with the other colours as well.

For my today's soft pastel painting I decided to go with black Canson MT paper as I wanted the foreground and part of the middle ground to be dark and in shadows. This is a beautiful scene from Karnala Bird Sanctuary and I love this place as I get to walk through different muddy pathways. It is densely populated with trees and in the morning hours I get the perfect light and shadow scenes. 

I have titled this painting "A walk through the shadows" as it reminds me of those beautiful moments in the tranquil nature. 

A walk through the shadows

A soft pastel painting on Canson MT paper

Size 5"X 7"

The soft pastel painting as above progressed in stages and the images can be seen as below. The broken pastels that can be seen around are from Mungyo, Gallery, Camlin and Koh-I-Noor. I also have a set of 24 dark Sennelier pastels which I use towards the end as they are very very soft.

Step 1. Creating the basic outline of the main elements

using white soft pastel pencil and blocking in the colours

of the winding pathway and the distant foliage.

Step 2. Blocking in the major shapes with respective colours

keeping in mind the source of light and atmospheric perspective.

In the final stages, I redo the layering of colours, making changes where ever required. All the detailing happens in the end.

Before I begin any painting, I create small "Thumbnail sketches" or "Tonal value studies" which help me understand the subject well and these little ten minute works enable me to decide on the best composition. Two of the small quick art studies can be seen below. The black and white study has been done using a single Staedtler 8B pencil. I have started using this pencil quite recently and am enjoying it. Both are sized 2" X 3".

Tonal value sketch & Thumbnail sketch

of a landscape.

Thank you all for visiting my blog. If you are into soft pastel medium I would love to know about the papers you use. Do leave in a comment. Browse through my other artworks on my INSTAGRAM page.

The Morning shadows - A soft pastel painting

"The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it." Gustave Courbet

I love to paint both landscapes and portraits. In fact what unifies every subject is light. The light that falls on the different elements in the subject defines its form and shape and helps reveal its colours. Pastels are a vibrant and ideal medium to capture this light and shadow effect in paintings.

Today's post is a soft pastel painting of a scene that I came across while I was at Karnala Bird Sanctuary recently. It was about ten in the morning and the shadows of the tall trees fell across the road creating interesting patterns. There is so much beauty that lies hidden in the nature and as an artist we try to capture it on to the paper using our vision and interpretation.

To know about the pastel palette that I use, CLICK HERE.

The Morning Shadows

Soft Pastel painting on Canson MT paper

Size 5" X 7"

The initial steps involved in creating the above painting are as follows. I have used a beige coloured Canson paper for this artwork. Canson MT comes in many different colours which is a big advantage to the artist. In this painting a major part of the composition was sky, hence I wanted to use a light toned paper as the base.

Step 1. After drawing a faint outline keeping the one third rule of composition, 

I blocked in the major shapes. At this stage I only look at simplifying the 

shapes and adding the colours as per value study.

Step 2. I add another layer of colours, laying emphasis on the dark tones, mid tones and the

highlights. At this moment, I pay attention to linear and atmospheric perspective

creating depth. I work on the shadows, the tree trunks and foliage.

In the final step I added a few necessary details like branches, sunlit foliage etc in the middle ground. At this stage I make use of my Koh-I-Noor soft pastel pencils. At some point of time I decide to call it quits to avoid overworking on the artwork.

Thanks for browsing through my artworks.Visit my INSTAGRAM page to view my works in other mediums as well. 

The woods - A soft pastel painting

"Design is like gravity - the force that holds it all together." E A Whitney

Some time back I posted a few plein air studies that I recently did while I was at Karnala Bird Sanctuary. Referring to the sketch and the photograph, I created the soft pastel painting as below.

The pathway lined with rocks and tall trees on either sides provides ample shade to everyone who walks here. The mystery and silence of the woods is captivating. Time stands still. When I am there, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, I feel like I am in another world and I just want to be there soaking in the beauty of the surroundings. Painting a scene like these is like capturing these beautiful moments on paper.

The woods

Soft pastel painting on Canson MT paper

Size 6.25 X 8.25"

An intricate forest scene always appeals to me as a subject for painting. The shades of green are intimidating and every time I do a scene like this one, I make a few mistakes and these mistakes make me learn a little more about colours, colour mixing etc.

I am enjoying my pastel journey and am looking forward to creating many more such interesting landscapes which take me back in time, and remind me of all the beautiful moments that I spent in nature in solace.

The quotation that I mentioned in the post today is a very interesting one. It speaks for what I believe in. Design and composition is the key to a good painting. It is like a strong force that binds all the elements together and keeps them in harmony. I spend a great deal of time in selecting a good composition for my painting, and then I work on the values and colours.

Thanks for browsing through my works.

The light and shadow in a landscape - Soft pastel drawing

"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all."

Michelangelo

The quotation as above says it all. Hard work and passion play a very significant role in achieving what one has in mind.

The early morning rays totally transform the landscape. One moment it is enveloped in darkness and then miraculously when the morning rays gently fall all around, the scene comes alive. The light and shadow play and its effects on the landscape continue to fascinate me and I constantly look out for such "Subjects" so that I can paint them and create a memory.

Posted below is one such beautiful scene that I came across while I was at Karnala Bird Sanctuary in the early morning hours. I have yet again used my "Soft Pastel"medium to create this original art. 

The Morning Shadows

Soft pastel painting on Canson Mi Teintes paper

Size 6.5" X 8.5"

For this painting I have used the "Twilight" shade of Canson MT and I am pretty happy with it. Next I am working on a beautiful seashore painting referring to my study sketch and photograph from Phuket island. 

Thanks for all your support and keep browsing.

Plein air painting - Study works in soft pastels

" Painting is easy, getting it right is the hard bit." Danny Byrne

Painting outdoors or on location is always a better option as we get to see the true colours of light and shadow. It is a more rewarding and powerful experience. However it is not always possible to create the entire painting on site. Therefore last week when I visited Karnala Bird Sanctuary, I decided to carry my limited palette of pastels in an endeavor to create small pastel studies on Canson paper so that referring to these and the photograph taken on location, I could then create the painting at my workplace.

I managed to create three of them sized 4"X 5.5"each and spent about twenty minutes on each of them. I carried my old photo album which I use to store my "Small study sketches". I find it very convenient to store my works this way as they do not get smudged a lot and sometime later I get to flip through my works for reference.

Three Plein air soft pastel paintings

created on Canson Mi Teintes paper

sized 4"X 5.5"

I have used three different toned papers namely black, beige and twilight. Fortunately this is the advantage of using Canson MT paper. It comes in many different shades. On earlier occasions I have used the orange toned paper for my seascape painting and it worked pretty well.

For a long time now I have only been working on dark toned papers for my forest landscape scenes. Now I am trying to shift to mid tone colours to see if they work out well for some of my artworks.

Being a nature lover I follow a lot of different photographers and their works as it keeps me inspired. I wrote earlier about an eminent photographer Mr Sudhir Shivaram. He is presently in Bharatpur and you can watch his videos and browse through his works on his FACEBOOK page.

Thanks for browsing through my works.

Painting a landscape in soft pastel medium

"If I create from the heart; nearly everything works, if from the head, almost nothing." 

Marc Chagall

When I select a subject for my painting, it is almost always because I love the subject and feel connected to it. Nature is so beautiful and inspiring and there are scenes that leave an indelible impression on one's mind. Through my paintings I am making an attempt to keep these memories alive.

While at Karnala Bird Sancturay during the morning hours, the sunlight created magic lighting up the pathway and the foliage at the tips. The scene was so beautiful that it was then and there that I had decided that I will paint it some day. 

It must be an year or so but every time I looked at this photograph on my laptop, I analysed it and then made my calculations regarding the steps that I would follow in order to create it. It looked pretty complicated in the beginning but then I simplified the steps in my mind over a period of time. Then finally one day I made a thumbnail sketch which more or less represented the vision that I had in mind. Referring to my preliminary study and using my Mungyo and Kohinoor Toison Dor soft pastels, I finally created the work as planned. 

The Morning Rays

Soft pastel painting on Canson Mi Teintes paper

Size 7"X 9"

I am back to my pastel paintings but at the same time I am also managing to steal a few moments to create my graphite drawings in my sketch book. Getting addicted to it, I guess. Will be posting a few of them soon.

Thanks for browsing through my works.

Sketching a landscape in charcoal medium

Charcoal sketching of a landscape

This charcoal sketching is inspired by the early morning scene at one of the trekking pathways at Karnala Bird Sanctuary. I loved the composition of the scene and selected this landscape as it helped me in understanding the tonal values of the complicated scene which had distant hills, sunlit pathway, bushes, trees, rocks, scattered leaves etc. 

The winding pathway

Charcoal sketching on Favini paper

Size 6" X 8"

Over a period of years I have collected a whole lot of art stationery which includes paints, brushes, pencils, papers and a miscellaneous collection of "Unused things". Among the not so used up paper is a "Favini" paper which I picked up from a Stationery shop at Thailand. ( I still have a whole lot of them with me ). Therefore for my present charcoal sketching I decided to put this paper to use. ( I have used it on earlier occasions for portrait sketching ).

In conclusion this paper is fine but I would prefer to use "Scholar" which I have started using pretty recently for my charcoal landscape works. Presently my stock of this paper is over and I am waiting to buy some soon. Unfortunately it is not available at ART STATION, the stationery store near my residence.

To view my soft pastel painting of yet another scene from Karnala Bird Sanctuary, CLICK HERE

I plan to use soft pastels to recreate the above scene on Canson paper.

"There is no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there is no end to it." 
Henry Moore

I believe every word of the quote as mentioned above. Art is a way of life. It happens everyday. I am always looking out for new subjects, new plans to add to the day today excitement of creating and learning at the same time. Art is fun.

Study sketches using willow charcoal and charcoal powder

Creating small study sketches using charcoal medium

My "Two days charcoal workshop" is coming up this weekend and therefore I decided to do a few study works in charcoal medium. The last time I created a few of them I felt the need to introduce the very dark black tone, which is not easily possible with willow charcoal and charcoal pencil. Therefore in my present sketches I have combined both the willow charcoal and black charcoal powder to get the desired effect. ( Easily available in most of the stationery stores ).

All the sketches below have been created on ordinary white cartridge sheet. These sketches are a bit of speedy works done in a very loose manner. The sole aim of doing these kind of sketches is to get an understanding of new techniques that can be applied in future for improvising on the art work. This time I decided to add a waterfall scene too along with some forest scenes. All the images below are from places that I have visited in the past. 

A scene from Karnala Bird Sanctuary

A tourist point at Mahableshwar

The Abbey waterfalls

I am posting the image of the small bottle which contains charcoal powder in it. I purchased it from ART STATION, a stationery shop close to my residence. The powder is fairly good and I use a piece of old cloth as blender to apply it on the paper. 

Charcoal powder ( Used for creating charcoal sketches )

Quotations by artists inspire me a lot to continue my journey of art. When I come across an interesting one I post it on my blog. The one below is from MAKING A MARK, an interesting art blog.

"I desperately needed something to hold on to, so I held onto my pencil." Joann Sfar

Exposed roots - A study work on Canson Mi Teintes paper

I came across this tree when I last visited Karnala Bird Sanctuary. It is a fairly simple 

composition and I have used a beige coloured Canson Mi Teintes paper this time for a 

change. The colour of the paper acts as the mid tone value. The brightest shade is achieved

by using the white pastel pencil and the darker shades are obtained by scribbling with 

Camlin and General soft charcoal pencil.

I have done little blending at places but mostly used the pencil strokes to achieve the bark

effect. I do these works very often and call them study works because everytime I do one of 

these I try out some different stroke or effect in an attempt to evolve my technique and to learn something further.

Charcoal and pastel study work.

Size 5" X 7" 

In my last post I wrote about having purchased the water soluble graphite sticks by Camlin

I am posting an image of the same below ( Courtesy google.com )

The pack has three graphite broad diameter sticks. I would have preferred something thinner as creating strokes can get difficult with these. So the next better option was to sharpen the tip of 

one of these. I have used it to create few thumbnail sketches which I will be posting soon.

When I see a new product such as this, I buy it off instantly because if it works good with

me and my kind of works then I know I can incorporate it along with some other medium later.

I think I can combine this with my normal graphite pencil to create small forest sketches. It is

a THOUGHT PROCESS which may eventually work out. Trying out new materials and techniques is a great way of challenging oneself and I truly enjoy doing these things.

Thanks for browsing.

The dappled sunlight on the tree trunk

When the rays of sunlight hit the forest they filter gently through the leaves and the dense branches, creating patches of warm glow on the tree trunk. The light and contrast play creates beautiful abstract patterns on the tree and I have tried to capture the magical glow through my Charcoal sketching as given below.

I have used Canson Mi Teintes paper for the art work and the following tools,

• Camel charcoal pencil
• Conte a Paris white pastel pencil
• Kneaded eraser
• Blending tool or tortillon

Canson paper has a sandy surface and charcoals and pastels work good on them.They are available in many different shades but somehow I have got stuck to using the dark grey one.

The dappled sunlight

Charcoal and white pastel sketching on Canson paper

Size 5" X 7"

My love and fascination for drawing and sketching trees continues to grow. It all started in the year 2014 when I was beginning to get into landscape paintings. I needed to study tree anatomy before getting to paint them. The best way to understand them was to do tonal study. I started it then and do it even now as I find it very relaxing. 

Sketching out a tree using charcoal pencil.

We were at Karnala Bird Sanctuary recently and it was early morning hours. The sunlight falling on the tree trunks created great light and contrast. It was a good opportunity for photography. Using one of the photographs I created the charcoal and white pastel pencil sketch as below.

The paper I have used is Canson Mi Teintes and it has a sandy surface which helps to fix the charcoal and pastel to fix on it well.

The Sunlit tree

Charcoal and white pastel pencil sketch on Canson paper

Size 5" X 7"

I started the  "TREE STUDY" sketches somewhere in the beginning of year 2014. The intention was to get a better understanding of the tree anatomy. Later it became a passion. The more I create tree sketches, the more I love them. Each one is so different, with its own individuality.

Browsing through my earlier posts I came across initial tree sketches as given below.

Tree trunk study works done in the past.

Painting a scene from Karnala in charcoal

Quick study work in Charcoal

A scene from Karnala Bird Sanctuary, a green hideaway close to Panvel. The scene as painted below in charcoal has been done using one of my photographs as reference. With aerial roots on the left, the scene appealed a lot to me and I felt the composition was quite good. 

I have made good use of willow charcoal in this artwork especially to create the foliage effect. When I am trying out something new using a new tool or technique I do it with a small size. It makes me feel comfortable. If it works good for me then I go ahead with a larger piece of work. In this particular work I have not spent any time creating each and individual leaf or fine details. I only wanted to capture the feel of the place, with trees, hanging roots and the dense foliage.

Aerial roots

Charcoal sketching on Canson ca grain paper

Size 4" x 5"

The tools used in creating the above charcoal sketching.

 1. Camel very soft charcoal pencil

2. Staedtler charcoal pencil EE

3. Willow charcoal ( some chinese brand )

4. Kneaded putty or eraser

I have quite a variety of charcoal pencils but many a times for a particular landscape the requirement is for creating grass or foliage etc and that makes me decide which pencil to use. Each pencil is different in its own way. Some are smooth, others are a bit coarse and rough on the paper. The texture of the paper too makes me take a decision. 

I have introduced willow charcoal very recently in my artworks and I am enjoying it. It will take a little time to get used to it and to know its advantages as an additional tool. Once done I will post a write up about it.

Trying out the underpainting technique using a wet brush.

 This scene is from Karnala Bird Sanctuary, which is about nine to ten kilometres away from Panvel ( Navi Mumbai ).

For long I had been wanting to do an underpainting with pastels and water hence I went ahead and tried out something new this time. ie after applying the initial colours I ran a wet brush over it value by value. ( In order to avoid too much of colour mixing on the paper ). After the paper dried up, I did not have to put any fixative and I immediately started with putting in details in the foreground.

I have not done any blending in the final layer and kept the background with very less details and contrast. The foreground is a lot in shadows. Since I was more keen on working out with this new technique of underpainting, I did not really spend a lot of time completing this work.

Through the forest

Soft pastel painting on Fabriano paper

Size 6" x 9"

I quite enjoyed this technique but since the paper is about less than 220 gsm ie it is not very thick so there is a little crumpling that takes place after the underpainting is done. Nevertheless for a small sized painting, I think it will really not make much of a difference. What I liked in particular about the second layer is that the pastels settled well and the dark bright lustre got retained very well.

I will definitely be doing more works with an underpainting rather than just blending with fingers.

( The dry method )