Showing posts with label values. Show all posts
Showing posts with label values. Show all posts

Monday, 29 May 2017

Using Arches 300 gsm cold pressed paper

"Master water first and then paint." Josh Goldberg

Gurudongmar Lake is a stunning lake situated at a height of 17100 ft above sea level in north Sikkim.
The lake can be reached by road from Lachen via Thangu. The approach road from Thangu to Gurudongmar passes through a rugged and enchanting terrain with high alpine pastures covered with many rhododendron trees. It is a difficult journey and most tourists leave Lachen early morning by 4 or 5 am as it takes three to four hours to reach the lake. However once the destination is reached it is an unbelievable sight and the beautiful view all around is mesmerising. To me it was like a dream come true.

Before creating any painting, as a rule I always create a few study works which helps me simplify the shapes, understand the values and colours. Creating a study work also helps me to decide on my technique that I would apply in order to create that particular work. Sometimes it is wet on wet and other times I go with wet on dry technique. I have used my newly purchased Arches cold pressed paper for this painting and if everything works out well I may use it as my preferred choice for water colour medium.

Water colour painting of Gurudongmar Lake on Arches cold pressed paper, By Manju Panchal

Gurudongmar lake
Water colour painting on Arches cold pressed paper
Size 7" X 9"

In conclusion, I enjoyed working with Arches cold pressed paper. It has a great textured surface which is ideal for landscape painting and being 300 gsm, it can hold water for long and does not buckle much. I am planning to create a seashore painting next on the same paper. After creating a couple of works on this paper I will be able to understand its quality better.

Thanks for visiting my blog and browsing through my artworks.

Thursday, 23 June 2016

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.