New pencil commission

Last year i was lucky enough to be invited to photograph a lovely retired racehorse with a view to completing a pencil drawing early this year in time for a special birthday.
Having drafted out the outline on a seperate sheet ive now traced it onto my prepared paper and made a start on building up layers of graphite.The lightest layers are just H grade pencil,from there subsequent layering of softer grades can be seen as i built up shape and form.the textures and fur details etc are added after achieving the correct tones using directional marks loosely applied.ive followed my usual practice of completing the darker areas first which makes working out the rest of the tonal range a little easier.i'll post further progress on this piece and i hope you'll enjoy watching it come together.