Roughly Hatched Rose
I did this little study last night. The only tools I used were a 2B pencil and a kneaded eraser. I used the side of the pencil to add the shading and I didn’t do any blending because I wanted the texture of the paper to show. The photo of the rose I worked from was very “flat” looking, so I bumped up the contrast in my drawing to make it more interesting.
It’s possible to exaggerate the shadow and highlights and still create a realistic enough drawing as long as the overall value pattern remains the same. I call this technique “the gentle art of lying.”