Scenic Tuscan

Graphite on 180gsm Paper, 10"*6'"

Practicing clouds. Diane Wright, whom I have mentioned before has excellent tutorials on her website. I keep going back to her blog and website for inspiration and tips.
Following Diane's tutorial on clouds, I crosshatched the sky area with a F .5mm mechanical pencil. After blending the whole area with a paper towel, I sculpt the clouds with a plastic eraser. I keep working on the clouds erasing and darkening till I am satisfied with the results.
For the rest of the picture I have used  .5mm mechanical pencils with a 2B lead for the darkest tones, F, 2H and 4H for the lighter tones.

Iron Chain Completed

Charcoal, carbon and graphite pencil on Vellum Bristol. 10"*6"

Tried so many different techniques in this one piece alone. The idea was to to get a realistic rusted iron chain texture. What worked eventually was, for the shadowed regions of the drawing, stippling with carbon pencil first and then with a hard charcoal pencil. Then a light blending with a brush. 

For the bright sun lite parts of the chain, a series of reverse burnishing, starting with 7H then 4H and finally 2H to get the rough texture. The white of the paper were preserved by stippling with a empty ballpoint pen before hand.

Iron Chain WIP

Charcoal,carbon and graphite pencil on Vellum Bristol.

Working on an another charcoal, carbon and graphite combination. Posting the quarter part of the piece that I have been working on. More to come soon.

Marigold

Acrylics on gessoed watercolor paper.

Inspired be some amazing watercolor works by pencil jammers, I did try a few myself, with disastrous results. Now am back to acrylics, watercolors will have to wait.
Wanted to paint loose with minimal attention to detail, with emphasis on the brush strokes. The whole painting took me about 2 hrs in two sittings  Spent an hour or so drawing the sketch on a rough paper, transferring it onto the watercolor paper and laying down few initials layers of paint. I let the paint dry over night and finished the painting the next day.

Landscape Struggles Finished

Graphite on A4 paper.

Finally completed this piece. Have kept it pending for quite some time now. The techniques I used, back when I started this drawing did not let me darken the grass as much as I wanted. And also I destroyed a few portions of the paper by erasing too much.
After a few days of mourning I have made peace with the fact that I might not achieve the required results. After a few final adjustments, am calling this finished.

Cherries in a Bowl.

Acrylics on canvas panel. 8"*10"

Wanted to try painting a glass or porcelain bowl. Was too intimidated by the glass, picked a porcelain bowl instead.

Eagle

Graphite pencil on 130gsm Paper. 6" * 7" approx. 

Back to Animals and Birds after a long time. Used 4B for the background, 6B, 2B, HB, 2H and 4H for the eagle. Taking the picture was a struggle as usual.

Waiting for Spring

Charcoal and 2B graphite pencil on A4 paper.

Another work with charcoal and graphite combination. I am falling in love with the charcoal pencils.

Old Barn in Watercolor

Watercolor, Acrylic gesso on watercolor paper.

This old barn in between the various shades of green fields was a real challenge to paint. mixing so many greens from blue and yellow.. whew.. hats off to all the superb watercolorist out there.

Watercolor trials

Watercolors, color pencil, micron pen on watercolor  paper

Watercolors on watercolor paper

 Water color trials. Watercolors are tough, after getting used to Acrylics, trying to paint in watercolors is very very difficult. I have to practice a lot to achieve the kind of results that I am looking for.

Canna Leaves

Carbon, charcoal and Graphite pencil on A4 130gsm Paper.

More Carbon, Charcoal and Graphite pencil experiments. I am pleased with this piece compared to the previous one. The details on the leaves are much better in this drawing as compared to Maple leaves, where I think I ended up with too much dark background.

Mapel Leaves

carbon pencil and graphite on A4 paper

Marsha Robinett who is an amazing artist and one of my favorite, uses carbon pencil for most of her work and gets amazing results. She also has a squidoo page Drawing Techniques: using carbon, charcoal, and graphite where one can learn more about her unique technique and the advantages of using all three pencils ( graphite, carbon and charcoal) in a single piece of work.

Cherry Blossoms

Graphite on handmade paper.

More experimenting with the background. Applied a dark layer of 6B blended it with a paper towel to remove excess graphite and reapplied 6B. After a few times of doing the same ... the paper refused to take any more graphite :(
Was trying to achieve a light breezy back ground but now I am not sure what it looks like.

Reflection

Graphite on handmade paper.

Another small piece, 14 * 7 cms. This is the first time I have tried to get a black background in graphite, achieving a perfect dark black in graphite is very frustrating and time consuming.

Tiger

Graphite on handmade Paper

A very small study, its 5.5 * 5 cms. Used 6B for the back ground but in this photo, the left side has more glare than in the actual drawing.

Waterfront.

Graphite on handmade paper.

Trying landscapes again. Water front this time around. Not a very clear photograph though. 

A few sketches

A few quick sketches in graphite over the last few weeks.

Tree Bark

Graphite on Handmade paper.

Photographing pencil sketches is such a tricky thing. After an year or more of trying I am yet to click a perfect picture of my sketches. Should try scanning soon...

Jeans

Grapite on handmade paper

The reference image for this drawing is from the blog 'The Artistic Biker', a great place for reference images for still life works.

Ballpoint Pen

Ballpoint pen on A4 printer paper.

This sketch was supposed to be a quick value drawing for a future painting... but I got carried away and spent a whole week on this Dahlia closeup. The drawing is done with a ballpoint pen on A4 copier paper.
Note to self: Next time I spend so much time on a sketch I should at least ensure I am doing it on a better archival paper.

Tomatoes

Charcoal on Handmade paper.

Inspired by Priya Sebastian, who blogs at  the fabulous 'tHe pLum tRee'. Charcoal as a medium was very scary and still is to a large extent. But slowly trying to over come those fears.