Charcoal drawing Charcoal, pan pastel, white pastel pencil It’s in the Sahara desert in Morocco. A nomad cook lit the fire and starts to peel the potatoes for dinner. The night is falling, but the fire is warming the air… After a long day it’s time to unwind and enjoy the peace in the darkness of the desert. The night camp scene is one of my most favorite subject matter, I love the monochrome charcoal drawing that to me the best way to depict the serenity of the desert.

Hello every one How is your artlife going? Do you manage to create some every day? Here is a video showing my quick charcoal sketch of a nomad young man holding a small baby goat. https://youtube.com/shorts/O-FI_8JOE2w?si=XWpnUHen1FnjLGGz His face is covered by the head cloth but his eyes tell us that he loves this creature with so much admiration. I love to work on this kind of subject as it gives me so much joy. As this is a quick sketch, the charcoal lines are a bit haphazard but I think it creates more intimacy to the subject matters. What is your opinion on this work? Please let me know. Also any questions or suggestions are welcome. Thank you. Below is the finished image 29 x 39 cm

Hi dear members Hope you have started a good week today. It’s a half moon evening, and here I’ve been experimenting oil pastels on an unusual surface. I bought a bunch of small wood panel treated by gesso many years ago. I just thought about using it for the oil pastel painting, which I thought would be a good idea. It proved how wrong I was… the smooth surface of gesso on the wood doesn’t like oil pastels. The colours don’t spread evenly and when I tried to put different colours, the pastel stick just skid to show the white surface of the panel. I fed up with struggling so I stopped painting and left it over night. The following day, I use small amount of turpentine with a soft brush trying to smooth out the surface but the brush picked up most of previously laid paint, it was an another failure. “It’s a good job” I said to myself “that I haven’t got a fireplace” and I changed to the oil paint to continue working. Yeah, in my old house where I had a fireplace, I would just throw it in the fire. Still it was not so easy but at least the oil paints work on the panel surface better. Still not satisfactory though, colour mixing is more manageable. I haven’t finished this small painting, will continue when the oil paint drys a little. Trial and error… There is no shortcut to the success. So my friends, keep enjoying the art! Life is a process, there is no goal! Thank you for reading. Midori

Hello every one, how have you been? Have you created some art today? I normally don’t like to work on a small piece of paper but my inspiration hasn’t been active so I decided to do a small painting in oil pastels. The dune in the Sahara… I had to manage with a limited colours for the sand dunes, although I have got many greens, blues. So this is what came out. I now realize that this simple desert landscape requires a lot of imagination! It’s fun! Let me see your recent works, thank you. Midori