Here's a test-sheet vs final that you may not have seen, and one of the initial sketchbook pages that goes with. This was my fav commission of last year
Test sheets always feel a bit like the portrait of Dorian Gray... They contain all the mistakes, angst, cussing, internal screaming, etc. But they also store all the learning. I return to them many times to remember how I did things.
Test sheets are also the part of a commission that I get to keep. Sometimes I put them on my wall next to a print of the finished work. They remind me that even drawings that start out looking like they were made by a hangry toddler on a rollercoaster... Usually turn out good at the end 😂
Califlora - polychromos pencil over watercolour
Still one of my favourite drawings, but I love the test sheet too. When I make commissions, I draw two identical outlines on the same acid-free paper. One sheet gets used to test everything & becomes like that damaged portrait in the Oscar Wilde book, while the other becomes the nice shiny final artwork. Once the finished piece has shipped, the test sheet is the part I get to keep. I return to these sheets again and again, to relearn ways to draw difficult subjects.
I live in the UK and probably won't ever meet the Californian wildlife in this drawing for real. So it was cool to get to research parasitic plants, fritillaries, etc from somewhere else in the world!
Snow plant by Biodiversity Heritage Library Field book of western wild flowers /. New York :Putnam,1915.. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40804001