I’M trying really hard to improve with every assignment. I also think one of the key ingredients to good work is putting the time in.  I took approximately 7 or so hours on this one. I worked on getting the shape right first before worrying about the shading. Once I got the shape I began looking at the tone of the bag as a whole. Getting the tone of the paper bag was tricky. It couldn’t be too light or too dark since the bag is a light brown. I used vine charcoal as a base for the tone. I used an H and HB pencil for the bag highlights. I concentrated on the light and dark shadows cast. I used a the light above my kitchenette table. I would take the darkest first and sketch out the shadows lightly and darken them as needed. I left paper space for the lightest of the highlights. This was the most time consuming. Every ridge and crinkle was some sort of shadow and highlight. I would blend with my finger as necessary to get a consistent tone. I filled in the shadow with an 8H pencil. And once over with compressed charcoal. Once I was happy with the bag I took “soft” compressed charcoal and filled in the background and vine charcoal for the table it was sitting on. I was conscience to make sure that I got rid of any lines that I drew for the bag or blended them well enough into the background. I cleaned up any smudges that made their way into the bag drawing and used an eraser to make the highlights pop a little better.

I’m very happy with the result as it looks even more realistic than I expected!!