Start of a new drawing

This is the start of a new graphite project that will,i hope,result in a paired drawing for my very popular and almost sold out 'Shadow Hunter' drawing of a black leopard.The subject of this drawing is a delightful young African leopard and the main focus of the drawing will be the eye contact between viewer and cat.my initial rough pencil drawing has been traced onto stretched HP watercolour paper and as is usual for me ive made a start on the background first.in this case the background will consist of layers of abstractly applied graphite in a blurry effect primarily designed to 'lift' the subject from the paper and add some much needed depth.once the initial layers of graphite have gone in I decided to plot in a few darks to help me judge tonal depth more easily.the obvious darks in this case were the spots of the cat and so a few of those have been added in.my darks are not just made up from a single soft pencil they are layered from several grades of pencil to help build solid unbroken tone and ultimately more depth to the finished drawing.having got some darks in place I then made a start on the ears of the cat,for no other reason than I find this the most challenging part of a cats anatomy to get right and therefore tackle it head-on.in the studio photo you can see ive completed one ear and have started the layering process on the other.i hope it wont be too long before I can post some more progress on this drawing,i also have a couple of oil paintings started but in very early stages as yet and so posts on the drawing will be intermingled with oil painting updates too.i hope you'll enjoy watching these all come together and welcome any feedback