Creating soft pastel thumbnail sketches

"The only source of knowledge is experience."Albert Einstein

Before starting off with the pastel painting, I always do a few thumbnail sketches or study works on small cut outs of Canson Mi Teintes paper. 

It is my way of doing a preliminary study of a complicated subject. By creating these small works using limited palette of pastels, I am able to simplify the scene by understanding the value masses, the composition, the additions and subtractions. If I am happy with the small sketch and if it looks good to me, then I go ahead and follow the same steps when I am recreating the work in a bigger format. Many a times I create more than one thumbnail sketch of the same subject in order to try out different compositions.

Follow my latest works and techniques on INSTAGRAM and if you love my works and they inspire you, share them with your friends.

Thnumbnail sketch, 3.5" X 5"

Sikkim

Thnumbnail sketch, 4" X 5" 

Dubare Forest, Coorg

Thumbnail sketch, 3" X 4.5"

Sikkim

Thank you for browsing through my artworks and if you are interested in joining me in my upcoming workshops do drop in a mail to me at manjupanchal5@gmail.com.

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.

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

Sketching a Face in charcoal and white pastel pencil

My last portrait study motivated me to do another one. Somehow I am enjoying the Handmade paper which I purchased from For from Sun Enterprises. For a long time I was busy doing Landscapes which was a revelation in itself. I learnt a lot and enjoyed a lot.

In the portrait sketching as below, my focus was more on getting the anatomy of the face, the expressions. There are facial muscles and bones underneath which all create shadows and depth. An understanding of which will make portrait drawing much better. I have added jewellery but not really worked on details.

The Smile

Charcoal and pastel portrait on Handmade paper

Size 6" x 8"

I am trying to work on a common size ( 6" x 8" ) from here on so that when it comes to framing it some day then I can go ahead and buy a Frames of a common size which makes it very convenient.

There is a very informative article on FRAMING of paintings on Artistsnetwork.com and it is very helpful in taking the right decision regarding proper framing of paintings.

Study sketch - Portrait on Grey hand made paper

I have always enjoyed creating drawings and sketches on toned paper using a simple white pastel pencil and a charcoal pencil. It is a good exercise and very satisfying too.

Given below is the image of a sketching which I have created on Grey hand made paper which has a textured surface. This is my first portrait on toned paper and it is more of a study sketch. To work is just black and white and to get the values right can be a little intimidating.

Avoiding too many details, I have tried to focus on the facial elements and expression.

Looking Across

Size 6" x 8"

Charcoal and white pastel pencil on Grey hand made paper.

Artistsnetwork is a good site where one can get a whole lot of information on charcoal
sketching or any other art related topic. During my spare time, I browse through such
sites a lot. It adds to my knowledge and helps me further in doing better artwork.
Moreover I get to see works of world renowned artists.