Runner Beans in colour pencil, finishing stage one

At art class today I finished my runner bean sketchbook piece in colour pencil; well I say finished, but I need to sharpen up the edges as they are a bit "furry".  The bean plant had got so big it had a tendency to wrap itself around the light over my drawing board.

My biggest challenge was keeping the highlights on the main leaf without giving it too much shine as the leaves are a matt finish rather than a waxy shiny finish.  I had left areas of white for highlights so rather than leave these blank and therefore too shiny I had to make them a lighter colour to give a good contrast between the shadows and so giving the leaf depth and life.  I ended up using a Faber Castell Polychromos Dark Flesh 130 and light Flesh 132 for some of the thicker veins as they only seemed yellow in places due to light shining through the leaf.
  
I finished with a "wash" on the front tip and the far right hand side of the leaf using Faber Castell Polychromos Chrome Oxide Green 278.  This subtly enhanced the shadows that are caused by the leaf drooping.

Copyright Su+2

Below is a collage of the stages of my leaves, I think they are all in the right order.

copyright Su+2

I thoroughly enjoyed doing these runner bean leaves and learnt a lot in the process.  Overall, I am very pleased with this sketchbook piece and can now begin work on the actual composition.

But then again, I also have a new jar of peas happily germinating so maybe I can work a bit more on some pea leaves...........