Charcoal Demo Works created during "Art Workshop"

"Life is pretty simple. You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else." Leonardo Da Vinci

In today's post I am sharing a few small charcoal "Demo works" that I created during my recent "Charcoal drawing workshop" that I conducted for two private students.

All of them are sized 5" X 7" and have been created on cartridge sheet, Fabriano Academia and Canson paper. I spend roughly around fifteen minutes or so to create these small works. For a bigger charcoal drawing I use a whole lot of different drawing tools, however for these small works I simply use a Camlin charcoal pencil and willow charcoal.

Charcoal drawing, Demo work

A beach scene from Maldives

Charcoal drawing, Demo work

A scene at Zero point, Sikkim

Charcoal drawing, Demo work

A scene from Langkawi

Charcoal drawing, Demo work

A seashore at Phuket

Charcoal drawing, Demo work

A tree from Dubare forest, Coorg

For every workshop that I conduct, I try and do a different demonstration, step by step, which helps the participants to understand the technique I follow in order to create a simple Charcoal drawing. 

I have used my personal photographs of places that I have visited in the past, to create the above drawings. I may refer to these study works to create a few "Water colour paintings" in future. 

Apart from charcoal drawings I am into other mediums as well and to browse through my other artworks you can follow me on INSTAGRAM. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Thumbnail sketches in soft pastel medium

Creating thumbnail sketches

"Thumbnail sketch" is my preliminary step towards creating my final artwork. It helps me focus on the composition and design elements. It is small in size, loosely done in a short span of time. 

Given below are two of my recently created thumbnail sketches on black coloured Canson Mi Teintes paper. In due course of time, referring to these sketches, I shall be creating an enlarged version of the same painting but with more details in the foreground. 

Working on small sketches saves me from loads of frustration later. A thumbnail sketch helps me plan out my colours, composition, design elements right at the beginning which proves very beneficial later when I am creating the final artwork. 

Thumbnail sketches of 

Niagara Falls

and Emerald green waters of Phi Phi island

Size 3.5" X 4.5"

I have been posting regularly about my "Thumbnail sketches" and to view one of them you can CLICK HERE. 

A Quote

"Painting is a means of self-enlightenment." John Olsen

Thumbnail sketches - study works for future paintings

After having done a couple of soft pastel paintings on different subjects, it is time to shortlist
the next few paintings to be done. For me it all starts with "Thumbnail sketches". These days I
create a couple of them after a careful analysis with respect to composition, colours and values.
Once my thumbnails are done, I pin them up on the flannel board next to my workplace so that
I can have a clear view of them all day along.

After several views, I start the preliminary painting process in the mind itself. It's like I am working on the different possible techniques which I can apply to go ahead with a particular painting. All of my thumbnail sketches do not necessarily get converted into the final art piece. It's only a selected few. The ones that start speaking to me and I can feel the connection.

Given below is the collective image of three different sketches that I just completed using the soft pastel medium. All are "Sea based subjects" my all time favorite.

Thumbnail sketches 

created on Canson Mi Teintes paper.

Size 4" X 5"

I am posting an old image which shows how my ART BOARD looks like with a display of all

my thumbnail sketches. Many of the sketches as in the board below finally saw the light of day

as I converted them into bigger pieces of artwork. 

Creating thumbnail sketches is a lot of fun work as I do them very freely and loose manner.

So its done without any fear or inhibition and many a times a small little work looks like a 

masterpiece to me and I take a quick decision to refer to it and go ahead with my bigger artwork.

I also call these small works as "Study works" as they help me to learn a lot. It is an exercise

in "Experimentation" wherein I get to evolve my technique by trying out new ideas and theories.

I have done several posts on "THUMBNAIL SKETCHES" and to view all of them you can

go to the search column at the right column of the BLOG.

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.

From photograph to thumbnail sketches - soft pastel medium

Most of my landscape paintings are inspired by NATURE.

Over a period of years, I have shortlisted a whole lot of photographs for my future artworks.
The intention is to create Landscape paintings as and when I get time. Therefore I decided to
create a series of thumbnail sketches which will help me visualize the final outcome as
the painting will look on completion.

Thumbnail sketch or study sketch is "The most important deciding factor for me" to go ahead
with the final painting procedure. I have used charcoal and water colour medium too for
creating these small study works but this time around I have used only soft pastels. The size
is more or less, always 4" X 5".

Given below are four thumbnail sketches created by referring to photographs taken by me
on different locations.

Thumbnail sketches

Created on Fabriano Elle erre paper

and Canson Mi Teintes paper.

After completing the thumbnail sketches, I analyse the final colours, values, composition etc

which helps me to decide whether to go ahead with the painting or redo the thumbnail sketch

by making the required changes. 

The upper two sketches turned out fine as planned in the mind but the lower two were a bit complicated scenes with a whole lot of overlapping elements. So the technique and steps that I followed did not quite work out. Therefore I may have to redo the lower two by following a totally different plan altogether. The photographs that I referred to for the lower two thumbnail sketches

are as below. They are from LANGKAWI island ( Malaysia ) and I am definitely planning

to do both these landscapes some day in my style.

Two landscape photographs from Langkawi ( Malaysia )

Creating thumbnail sketches, I feel, has brought about a lot of discipline in my art journey.
I was inspired to do so after seeing many other artists doing the same. My personal
experience also taught me that whenever I went ahead with a large sized artwork
without a preliminary study, the painting either got ruined or did not turn out
satisfactory.

Preparing for water colour seashore paintings

After having done a few landscape paintings of Himachal where in I got to work on mountains and rocks, I now decided to explore the beaches which is my all time favourite subject.

Therefore I created few water colour study sketches with a difference. Different because I initially created the tonal sketch in my Art Sketch Book using ordinary HB pencil and then later ran my water colour brush over it. So it served twofold purpose. It helped me understand the tonal values as well as the watercolour techniques.

Given below are the images of few of my small works sized 4" X 5". I have also started writing few notes under each completed work regarding the colour scheme or technique used in that particular art work. So later when I browse through my older works, it can be a great reminder of the exploring and experimenting that I did in the past.

Water colour study works of seascapes

in my cartridge sheet sketch book.

I have randomly selected different scenes so as to handle different elements and have also tried to focus on a good composition. I particularly enjoyed the colour scheme that I experimented with in the first painting with the lighthouse.

Three water colour study works on cartridge paper

Be it "Thumbnail sketches" OR "Study works", I believe in working this way to have a better understanding of the medium. With more experience in handling the medium, the confidence to create bigger works comes easily.

Given below is three images water colour paintings of randomly selected landscapes. I have tried the wet on wet technique in most of them. The last of the images is of the view in front of the Coorg Homestay, early morning. The far off land was covered with fog and everything was hazy. Tried to capture the atmosphere in the paintings.

Three small water colour works on 

Cartridge paper.

Each one is sized 4" X 5"

Quotation

By

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The landscape belongs to the person who looks at it."

My favourite water colour works in my Travel sketch book.

I created my first Travel sketch book using hand made paper in order to create small water colour paintings while away from home. It has about forty small papers spirally bound together. Last month I finally used up the last three pages that were left blank.

Given below is a collage of four of my personal favorites ( Landscape paintings ) out of the forty small water colour paintings. All of them have been created using Camel Artists water colour tubes.

Water colour study works

Sized 3.5" X 5"

The top two paintings are from Himachal and Kharghar ( Monsoon time )

The lower two landscape paintings were done in order to get a better understanding

of the foggy atmosphere. 

Water colour medium is a very challenging medium and I enjoy it a lot as it gets done quickly, although it can be very frustating as there is not much scope for corrections and a if work gets ruined, then you have to just let go.

I get so inspired by artists like Joseph Zbukvic, a master water colorist from Australia. Recently I also came across works of Nita Engle, an American water colour artist and her works too are amazing.

My paintings can also be seen on my FACEBOOK page and if you like my works please share.

The twenty minute sketchings in my Travel sketch book

When I created my Travel sketch book it was with the intention of doing small study works without getting into too many details. However it so happens that as an artist one easily gets carried away to work out all the details. Hence I decided to time my study works so as to spend just about twenty to twenty five minutes on each of them.

It gets difficult though as there is always something to be erased or added. Nevertheless timing each work did help and given below are few of my Twenty minute sketches done in pencil and charcoal.

Three study sketches

created on Canson c a grain paper

The subjects chosen for sketching are random as I want to try out everything be it still life, nature or portrait.The first sketching is of a leaf which I picked up from some field and the sketching has been done using both graphite and charcoal pencil.

The next sketching is of a simple Forest scene where I have used willow charcoal in the background and then moved on to using Camel charcoal pencil in the next layer.

In the third sketching of the tree trunk I have used a black ball point pen initially to create the outline and the dark tones and later I have used both willow charcoal and Camel charcoal pencil to complete the work.

Diane Wright a graphite artist writes on Importance of sketching

"Sketching is the fundamental building block for an artist. It is used to develop a personal visual vocabulary. Sketches are visual exercises in problem solving." 

Thumbnail sketches or study works in soft pastel medium.

 "The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection." Michelangelo

 Making a thumbnail sketch helps me plan my procedure better. The steps I follow in creating a small sketch helps me proceed with the painting in a much easier way. It also helps me to improve on my technique and to tackle issues which otherwise would get complicated.

Given below are three different thumbnail sketches from COORG created using the soft pastel medium. I used leftover cutout pieces of Canson Mi Teintes  paper for the same and avoided spending more than fifteen minutes on each of them. When I finally create a bigger piece of art work referring to these sketches, I would be adding more details.

Three thumbnail sketches from COORG photographs

created on 3" X 4" Canson paper using soft pastels

My works can also be browsed at on INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK page.