An Autumn Recap

A year ago, I photographed, and attempted to paint, this horse chestnut (conker). At the time I was quite pleased but I felt I had improved my skills since then. So I gave it another go. The first time was in watercolour pencil and this time I used watercolour colour pencil as a base and then did the main work in coloured pencil. 

Apart from realising half way though that my expensive cotton Arches watercolour paper is not the best surface for pencils, I pushed through and I'm pleased with the result. Perhaps I'll try again this time next year to see if I have improved.