I really need to look at master drawings from Asia. Artists like Seitei Watanabe who’s compositions and elegance are masterful. Sometimes I get a glance of this possible beauty while I’m working, but its a simplicity that my anxiousness will never let last.
I used charcoal to block in the darker background and get rid of most of the white paper. Charcoal just moves much easier than graphite so I lay it on heavy after sketching out the major shape of the subject then rub it in with a tattered paper towel. This ends up obscuring most of what I have already drawn, but that is ok, I find that I always draw something better the second time. Then I basically just focused on detail and getting all the shapes and values correct. I also tried not to over work the drawing, right after doing the top most leaf I felt that the drawing was getting an elegant simplicity about it so I tried to continue with it. It could be much darker to make it more true to life, but it was not necessary.
