Pen & Ink practice - adding various textures

I've been enjoying this current round of pen & ink exercises very much. They've been encouraging me to practice varying textures and, almost more importantly, make good note of contrast. Contrast is key in the effectiveness of a pen & ink piece.

It's a beginner's mistake to make everything uniform in "color," that is to say, not show enough difference between lights and darks. I have made this mistake many, MANY times and know that it takes some fly by the pants courage to stand up and do it right. I think this piece, although a bit overworked, does show the required contrast. It also succeeds in shape and texture.

And so we proceed onwards to the next exercise...

As a postscript I wanted to add something about the pens I used in this exercise. I experimented with a number of pens as the small size (5"x7") required great delicacy of line. After much experimentation I settled on one of my Noodler's Piston Fill fountain pens filled with Noodler's Bulletproof black ink. I was surprised that this pen had a delicate enough line to pull it off but it was perfect for the job! The Piston Fill seems to have a line similar in width to the Lamy Safari Extra Fine. Pretty cool to discover that one of my favorite pens for sketching was also perfect for this exercise too! :-)