Sketch illustration-1 (of 5)

My initial plan was to do a quick pencil line drawing on bristol board so that I could do a greyscale oil painting, scan it and then convert to color...however as i started to lay down the shading with my .9 mechanical pencil I kept rendering, and rendering and rendering. Before I knew it the oil paints sounded less and less interesting.

I am such a practical persons and find it hard to sketch or make finished sketches of things that are not going to become a full rendered-colored illustration. So over the next week or so (instead of my third illustration) I will complete a total of 4 more penciled illustrations. They will be simple, exploring and fun at the same time.

Following after my initial idea for the illustration above, after I have completed the five pencil drawings I will then pick one of them and make an color illustration of it. Perhaps I will continue this process for the rest of the summer! It is fun to complete many ideas in a highly rendered fashion in the time it takes me to complete one. Plus by having a full value pencil drawing it makes for a good start as an underpainting.