Drawing in progress

I regret I didn't scan my Balinese figure before shading it so I thought I would scan the various stages of my next drawing and see what happens. So far it has been a bit of a revelation to me too - I didn't realise how much I tweak things after the initial sketch, though I suppose every drawing will be different.

The first stage (left) is scanned at the point I felt 'that's it' I had got the outline I wanted. Scanned before I cleaned it up. By that I mean the lines are not all that clear, there is a lot of detail and it's a bit confusing. I started this last night and spent much of that time just looking at the trainers and trying to arrange them in such a way that I thought would be interesting. The truth is, a lot of that time was spent putting off the moment of actually starting to draw as I could see this was going to be very detailed with those laces! I left it overnight so that I could look at it more objectively in the morning.

Here the sketch has been cleaned up a bit so that I can see the general patterns of lines and shapes and how they connect. The trainer at the back is still sketchy as I don't like the shape of the toe. It looks too short and the perspective looks wrong despite me checking in a drawing plane. This is how it looks in reality but it doesn't work in the drawing. I fill in the dark treads of the soles as I love these shapes and start on the darkest parts inside the shoe just to simplify (it felt a little overwhelming) I'm not sure where this is going with the values but I will block in some shapes and adjust as I continue cross referencing. I'm not 'in the zone' at all and other more important things are happening - two teenagers emerge from their caves looking for food!

Later on the light is starting to fade but it brings out some of the textures. I've changed the toe of the trainer at the back - to heck with reality! I'm really starting to enjoy this and start thinking about the trainers and when Alex and I went out looking for them. We couldn't find any in Kuwait and things were getting desperate when we were in London, about to go to Iceland (in July). We found these in Black's in Clapham Junction (Sarf London!) I love the colours - very earthy.
Finally have to turn on the light and give up - but the light looks better so I'm on a roll. Until dinner time, half an hour later! It takes me half an hour standing in the kitchen to switch off (or is that switch on) and stop wondering what on earth I'm doing there. Funny, now that I describe it, that I never noticed all this before! Will try and finish it tomorrow.