Behind Beauties Darkness....process

This is another personal piece to go with 'Gnarled' and 'Master of Carrion'. They're all part of a series I'm working on, and I should be adding to that soon, as I've got another one lined up. Yet again, I always had a pretty clear idea of how I wanted this to turn out. The initial sketchbook drawing is very close to the final image. Although you could argue the hand crushing the butterfly is a significant addition to the narrative.

Bird bones process...

I found these bird bones a good few months ago, but I've only just gotten round to drawing them. Bones in general fascinate me (as is evidenced from previous posts) but I was particularly interested in the delicate look of these. My support is Strathmore toned grey paper, and I begun with a light graphite sketch. This is simply the basic shape of the subject, with no emphasis on detail or tone yet. Once I've got the basic construction in place and I'm happy with the composition I'll block in the basic shadow shapes. This isn't taken to any degree of finish, just a generalised approximation of shadow placement. I did this shadow block-in using graphite powder applied with a small filbert brush. Now that the drawing is a little less flat, I build up layers of shadow/tone gradually, in multiple layers. I tend to work from the darkest values into the middle tones and only in the last layer of rendering will I add the white charcoal highlights. They're like a bonus for yourself at the end of the process that brings it all together and adds that extra bit of depth and form.