Drawing the RSN Silk Shading image

Last summer my brother came to the USA from Australia. Although we weren't able to coordinate our time together in Iowa with our family, he generously agreed to bring over a light box that I'd seen online from Create In Stitch in Australia. They were having an amazing sale so I bought one and had it shipped to him. He then carried it over in his luggage and I brought it back to Germany. This light box has been around the world!This weekend was the first time I'd had occasion to use it and it is WONDERFUL! It's large - A3 size which is 29.7 cm by 42 cm. The light is strong but doesn't glare and the surface stays cool. Above is a photo of the printed image with a piece of tracing paper over it. Below is the tracing paper with a piece of heavy drawing paper over it. You can see the image clearly no matter what kind of paper is being used. It works equally well over fabric (that's a post for another day!)Using a hard pencil - 4H - I traced the outline and then got out my coloured pencils to do the work of colouring the image. The purpose of this exercise is to practice seeing the colors in the image. Yes, the flower is white, but it's far more than white! You can see some of the pencils I used in the photo below along with the scribble paper I used to test the color before I used it on the drawing. Often the lead in the pencil doesn't look the same as what is coloured with the lead.That scribble paper is like the test fabric I'll have with me during the course. I have made up a small square of calico backed grey silk to have next to me so I can test thread combinations before I commit them to the real thing.Above is the drawing next to the photo. Of course, using drawing paper, the white isn't as white as in the photo but that wasn't what I needed to "see". White is pretty easy when it's white. This image, however, has shades of grey, blue, pink, violet, green and yellow in it. The green sepals were a bit tricky since the greens have black and a mustardy yellow/brown in them.Overall I'm pleased with the drawing. I may do it again on white paper to see if I can get the shading/shadows even closer to the image. It took a while to color the image, but I know that the silk shading will take a LOT longer!