Continuing With Pencil Drawing

'East Palatka' Holly - 9x12 - Graphite Pencil - February 2016

This weeks assignment in my Natural Science Illustration Class is a pencil sketch of a 'East Palatka' Holly.    This is not finished yet but I thought it would be good to take a photo and post so I could see more clearly where I needed more dark shading.     Here are the steps in this assignment.   Our assignment was to draw thumbnails sketches of various composition of a still life of the holly.   We then use a proportion scale to determine the % need to enlarge the drawing to at least 9x9.     We then traced the enlargement onto tracing paper and then traced onto a hot press paper.   Our task was to use a magnifying glass to search for all the detail in the veins, etc.    It's only after completing this drawing that we are to do a color recipe card for the colored pencil drawing.   I've worked hours on the graphite drawing already so this is turning into quite a project.   I will say that the more work on the front end creates a better results on the back end.