Drawing I: Midterm Project

Our drawing midterm was all about learning shading and value since we haven't really spent much time learning it yet.  We were given a picture at random and asked to use the grid to create a contour drawing of the image.  I got the dragonfly.

Then we were asked to place several other lines that intersected the image on the picture plane so it made more shapes.  This assignment was all about value so we had to shade from the darkest black to the purest white in each new shape.  I started with an Ebony graphite pencil but found that it took too much effort to get the shading really dark.  After about 15 shapes my hand started hurting intensely so I decided to switch to charcoal.  Here's a picture of my work in progress:

I decided to make a circular pattern like you would find on a stepping stone in a garden.  You can see how different the shading to the left is with the charcoal as compared to the shading in the middle with graphite. 

This piece is 18"x24" and took me almost two weeks working every second I had a chance to complete.  In the end it turned out pretty neat looking but the dragonfly gets a little lost in the design.