Every drawing and painting starts with handmade gesso boards, with many many layers of sanding and a final light coat of umber rubbed into the surface. You can read more in detail about my traditional gesso here.
Let us start in a sketchbook and get some basic shapes down and work on a composition we like.
It helps to work from reference photos, you can take your own or look on the internet to work from real life will help your drawing skills no end.
Keep looking and drawing, looking and drawing, this is where you can work out any mistakes and change things you do not like at this stage.
Once you are happy with your composition, and values, you can start in your chosen medium on your final method of surface. For me I love working on gesso boards, they are so smooth and the oil pencil glides on like butter.
Here I like to make final amends to the finished drawing to get the exact look and feel I am after.
I work from shape-to-shape, filling in each shape then moving onto the next on the form, that way I can check I am happy with the finish of that before I move on to the next section.
Here I have filled in half of the ribbon and I am happy at this stage, so I move on to the other half of the ribbon.
When I am completely happy with the final drawing and have done any smaller finishes, I will use a fixative to seal my drawing, and then move on to choosing a frame that compliments the final drawing.