Winter dogwood branch - 1

Today I am setting out to draw a dogwood branch.  This is a terrific candidate for a pencil drawing as it is completely grey with the exception of a slight rosy tint in the buds.  I'm intrigued with the graceful lines and those beautiful, fat buds which sit like tiny little puffs of meringue at the end of each stem.

This photo doesn't do much justice to the branch itself or to my initial sketch, which you can barely make out in the foreground.  But I wanted you to see what I'm seeing.  The first step is to faintly sketch the form on the paper, making sure the proportions and angles are all accurate.  This took me about an hour.  Now I'm ready to go back in and begin shading.  Stay tuned!