Charcoal, slowly

Charcoal is patient work. You build it up layer by layer and you can't rush the dark parts.

Ganesha starts with faint guide lines and the crown, with every small detail of it drawn in before moving on to the face. Then the trunk and the ears get their soft shading, until the whole thing looks carved.

The peacock is halfway there: the head and the long neck done in fine strokes, the feathers on the body just starting to fill in.

And sometimes we practise just one thing, like hair. One long fall of hair, strand by strand, with the light catching across the middle.