As a drawing can take many days, even up to a couple of weeks, it makes sense to be sure that the most challenging parts of the image are going well before investing time in the rest of the drawing however, the ideal procedure is successively to block in tone and colour overall and work coherently all over the image from the rough initial stages onwards - more so in landscapes, which present fewer complications than illustration work.

My working process tends to be a compromise between blocking in successive layers of increasingly finished tone and colour - the 'proper' way of doing it - and concentrating first on the most difficult and interesting elements of a drawing - the most efficient way. I use a putty rubber both to erase mistakes and, in some instances, to create tonal effects. Black and white drawings are done with soft 6B-8B pencils, kept as sharp as possible, on good quality cartridge paper. When a drawing is finished I apply SpectraFix fixative as sparingly as possible artwork is then covered by protective transparent acetate film until framed and glazed.

I use a mahlstick to keep my hand away from the paper surface when drawing detail and mix and blend colour with my fingers ( I was amazed to hear once of a teacher forbidding students to do this!). Sennelier, Winsor & Newton (Unison) and Rowney - I also use Carb Othello pastel pencils, though more for marking in initial indicative outlines than for detail, which I find is best achieved by working large - usually a full 28x20' sheet of Canson paper - and using the angled corners of the pastels as they wear down with drawing. All my colour work is drawn in chalk pastel on Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper, working at an easel on a vertical board to allow the chalk dust to drop away from the paper surface.

Hans Christian Andersen by Rumer Godden