Day 18 -The Conference - Work In Progress

Today I thought it would be interesting to record the stages of today's work. I decided to draw the penguins again, as I wanted to practice composition a little, pre-planning in pencil, moving stuff around etcetera. But almost the first of my photo's was kinda perfect as it was. So no pre-planning done.
Started with a pencil sketch, on which to base the next stage. This I rarely do but feel that maybe I should more often.
Next was adding the colour. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to do a line drawing using ink at this stage, or whether I would go for more depth using watercolour. Or stick to the graphite - the combination of small areas of watercolour and graphite can be very delicate and beautiful. However, I didn't feel that would be right for these guys.
So I went with the watercolour - I was using HP watercolour paper - but disaster struck. I wasn't used to the paper and the paint seemed to dry instantly, making it very difficult to keep a leading edge. It also made it impossible for me to charge the wet areas with thicker, darker paint - a technique I use a lot in life drawing. But that is on Bristol paper . . .
This is the next layer, trying to improve matters. Daylight was beginning to fade by this time, making the photography difficult (the drawing being just a little too large to scan). As you can see, I am trying to make a virtue of the uneveness and add in darker tones. But it would take a few more layers before we got to the final image.
Photographed at night, so not a great image. Oh well. Ended up with something I quite like and I learned a fair amount doing this. But I still prefer the original drawing.