layers upon layers

Another suggestion in the endless list of things one can use to enhance contour drawing skills is the very complex, many-layered Pine Cone. (cue dramatic music)

I started drawing these while on our annual retreat to the Adirondacks for the week between Christmas and New Years...

I honestly believed that I would get to complete another few whole ones while at home, but apparently that just wasn't reality for this first quarter of 2012.

One excellent feature of the pinecone is that it's overwhelming, so you really have to decide what is drawing your eye, and where you're going to begin - the many layers of "petals," as I came to call them, seem to have no beginning and no end, and this method of drawing does not give you much in the way of dealing with the incredibly deep shadows between them. Thus, the drawings became more like meditations on a single area and that produced its own joy.