Shading Exercise Update

It's taken much longer than I anticipated but I finished my second shading exercise. This time I wanted to compare the two pencil sets I have. On the right are the two done with Derwent pencils, a set of H - 9B; on the left I used Faber-Castell, a 6H, a 5H and a set of 2H - 8B. This is not a sponsored post. I have mostly used my Faber-Castell pencils, I was given the Derwent pencils but over all I prefer the F-C and that was reaffirmed in this exercise. I generally prefer H/hard pencils to B/soft pencils. I really like the smoothness of the F-C pencils.
As for the exercise itself, practice makes perfect, I'd like to do one more, this time I want to make it as clean and crisp as possible.

Drawing excercises

I've set my sights on some new goals as an artist and what I'd like to achieve will require me to up my game. I've really worked at a lot of things over the years but drawing and other art "fundamentals" if you will, have slipped, so I'm making yet another effort to improve my drawing skills.
This is a very simple and unexciting exercise, I remember doing in on in my first high school art class, possibly in middle school as well. I remember being satisfied with my efforts in high school but it's been a long time. In middle school I used one pencil (usually a .5 mechanical pencil) to achieve the full range of values. I was introduced to the idea of using a range of pencils (hard to soft) to achieve the same effect, I became more aware of the range of papers available and how not to abuse them as I drew.
What I'm taking a long time to say is that I'm still getting used to the idea and process of using a whole range of drawing pencils to create my range of values. I should be much better at this by now but I've never put the work in. Hopefully I can do that and stick with it this time.
Here's my first attempt.

I'll do better on the next one.

Tools of the Trade

I was working out a new design and I was reminded of how helpful colored pencils are. One grid can begin endless designs so until you're very familiar with the based pattern, it's to mark out your design so you don't forget. You can work with the colors you intend to use and see how they work or you can just use random colors.

The Process

I've been working on a new painting, I haven't actually started painting it yet but a lot of work has gone into it already.

It starts off in the sketch book, I try different things to see what might work and what doesn't. The next phase is to make a study, I haven't always done this but I'm trying to get better at it rather than winging it as much. Anyway in the study I draw out what I think the painting will or should look like and use colored pencil to give and idea of the colors I want and what they might look like. Things might change from the study to the painting. Drawing out the painting is the final step before painting.

"New" Designs

I've been wanting to get back into geometric designs since I stopped working on the Eight Fold series. I tried some hexagonal based designs inspired by some I've seen from Lisa DeLong, Jeea Mirza, and others. I've been trying something new with the paintings I've been working on and I'm not loving it, so today I took a break from them to try something different. I tried a couple of new (to me) designs from this book.

It probably should have been obvious but pastels are not the best for precision work. We live and learn. It's my first real attempt at pastels.