Charcoal drawing on Strathmore gray toned paper

"You never outgrow drawing. It's so fundamental to everything." Debra Groessner

No matter what medium I am into, getting back into drawing and sketching refreshes my creative spirit. As mentioned in the quote above, drawing is fundamental to painting any subject. We paint as we draw. 

The charcoal drawing below is of a group of rocks and pebbles at the seashore. Last time when I handled the same subject I used a cartridge paper. This time, however I decided to use the Strathmore gray toned paper in which the gray colour of the paper acts as the mid tone value and I had to add the darker and lighter values to complete the painting.

Pebbles

Charcoal drawing on Strathmore gray toned paper

Size 4.5" X 5.5"

Posted below is the initial stage of the painting where I have created the outline of the rocks using a graphite pencil and added darker values at certain places.

Initial step

Drawing of pebbles

This is a small charcoal drawing and hence I have used only a charcoal pencil and a white pastel pencil. CLICK HERE to view all the different charcoal tools that I use in order to create a bigger charcoal work. 

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Annual sale at Art Lounge, Art Stationery shop at Churchgate, Mumbai

"Painting is by nature a luminous language." Robert Delaunay

Art lounge is an art stationery store at Churchgate, Mumbai and they are currently having their Annual sale which ends on 16th of April, 2017. I went there couple of days back to buy my soft pastel and charcoal products. Since they have their sale catalog online it helped me to shortlist the products.

I am listing a few things that I purchased this year. Until last year I was working more on black coloured Canson MT paper. But my recent landscapes on twilight shade turned out equally good. Therefore I added a few sheets of mid tone Canson MT sheets.

My final list of products that I purchased are as follows

• A few Canson Mi Teintes sheets. ( Mostly mid tone colours )
• General Charcoal and General white pastel pencil.
• Few Kohinoor Toison Dor pastel pencils
• Kneaded erasers
• Kohinoor graphite pencils
• Canson Bristol XL sheets ( Purchased this to try out my graphite works )

• Strathmore Toned Gray ( Pad of 50 sheets ) I have used the Strathmore black paper and loved it a lot for my portrait works. Therefore decided to buy this one to try out my charcoal and pastel portraits on it.

As with any other artist, I already have a big collection of papers, pencils, brushes and other products at home. Therefore I did not have to purchase as much as I did in the previous years. 

I am excited about the two new papers that I have purchased namely Strathmore and Canson Bristol. I have read a lot of good reviews about them so am confident that it will all work out good.

Apart from Art Lounge, the other Stationery stores that I frequently visit are Himalaya Stationery Mart  and Art Station.