[Jm321]

Hello, this drawing took probably around 25 hours give or take. I have a photo of the drawing, and a photo of the reference I used. I used a 1 inch by 1 inch grid on it. I feel like parts of it aren't shaded dark enough, but I really feel like if try to do more now I could end up messing up the whole drawing by overworking it.
Also I want to use charcoal for the background. I want the background to be pitch black which charcoal can do, but I'm scared that the charcoal could smudge on to the graphite and ruin the drawing. Anyways, let me know what you guys think, any feedback will help, thanks.

 

[Schizo]

As for feedback on the lily itself I can't find much to say, looks great to me. I don't see too many areas that need to be much darker--maybe the edge of the bottom right petal? Can't quite tell.

As for the charcoal background idea, there isn't too much to worry about, I did one like that a few years ago and the charcoal still hasn't smudged over the graphite.
A few words of warning about that, though. I remember it being a bit difficult to get it properly dark around the edges of the drawing due to the chalkiness of the charcoal. Charcoal also gets much darker than graphite, so if there are areas you think aren't dark enough, the charcoal will make them stand out more.

Another thing you can do (which I didn't bother with) to prevent the charcoal from smudging is applying a fixative when it's finished, they should be fairly cheap at Hobby Lobby or similar stores.

 

[Jm321]

So I started the charcoal background, and as you said it is difficult. I've only done a small section so far, and I'm terrified of some of the charcoal getting on the graphite cause it crumbles so easily. But I figure if it does smudge I can use the kneaded earaser to lift it out of the drawing.

As for the fixative, do you have any recommendations? I made this drawing as a present for my grandma's birthday so I'm gonna need one.

 

[Schizo]

Yeah, getting the charcoal right can be a bit wonky. It looks cool when it's finished, though. I think that I just dealt with the crumbliness of the charcoal by blowing it away as I drew, maybe pointing a small fan might work better if you tape the paper down.

I don't use fixative much (I take horrible care of my drawings :/), but this is the last one I remember using--but any should suffice, really.
https://www.hobbylobby.com/Art-Supp...-Tools/Grumbacher-Matte-Final-Fixative/p/9972

 

[Jm321]

Got a little update here. So I pretty much got the charcoal background done as you can see in the pic. I might do one last go around with the charcoal to make sure I got all of the background completely black with no white specs peeping through in the paper.

The charcoal did crumble a lot especially since I used a 6b soft charcoal pencil, and a 4b soft charcoal stick. I drew the charcoal in one quarter of a section at a time, and when their was an excessive amount of charcoal crumbles I would just pick up the drawing and slide them into the trash. I also found that just blowing the crumbles away worked well too.

I also had a lot of problems trying to get a decent picture of the drawing. Graphite does shine a lot so I turned down the brightness on my phone and that helped a little, I also tried adjusting the light in the room many times and the angle at which I took the picture to no avail. So if anybody has tips on how to take a good photo of a graphite photo I would appreciate it alot.

 

[Schizo]

The charcoal background ended up turning out really well here--I don't even want to think about how long it took. Took me forever, and my drawing was only 1/3 of that size.
As for taking pictures of drawings, I place the picture underneath my floor lamp on a chair, and take a picture of it where the lamp and I are parallel (if that makes any sense).
The challenge there is keeping your shadow off of the picture, but it does eliminate the graphite shines.

 

[Jm321]

The charcoal background didn't take too long. Maybe 2 or 3 hours. First I carefully outlined the flower with a 6b charcoal pencil, then I went back around and made the outline a bit thicker. Then I divided the background into 4 sections. I used a 4b charcoal stick to fill in the sections one at a time, the charcoal stick really helps on time. It puts the charcoal down fast and dark.