Squirrel skull process...

I found a squirrel skull on one of my walks in the park, so I decided to draw it using pencil and graphite powder on toned paper. Skulls, whether human or animal, are absolutely fascinating to me, and a big challenge. As always, I started off with a light sketch, focusing on the larger shapes, before moving onto some of the smaller ones. I had a strong single light source coming from the window, so it was easier to draw in the basic shadow shapes, before defining the whole thing with a variation of darker and thicker lines to suggest depth. I then began to block in the shadows with a small brush dipped in graphite powder. This is a pretty quick way to block in tone, and quite satisfying. It's a case of building up the layers of tone gradually, one layer after the next, and filling in details, including highlights with a white pencil or white pastel. I'm not entirely sure how long this took, but it was certainly several sittings. Fairly pleased with it overall. I'd like to get my hands on a crow skull next.