In the past I've enjoyed drawing rocks and boulders for their sheer variety of texture and shadow; they're almost organic but in a very monumental way. Well it turns out that drawing pebbles is much the same - just on a smaller scale - and they're a whole lot easier to arrange. This is why I scooped up a small handful of stones and set them up like this to capture the sun at different angles:
In the bright sunlight it's clear that the faces of the stones present themselves differently and this was the key aspect which I wished to capture. In shadow the material appears much darker, almost wet, while in light the surface appears pale and washed out. Accordingly I focused on keeping the tone different while also picking out specific details. In practice I couldn't quite get enough precision with pencil alone and so used an ink pen for the very finest detail:
It turns out that smooth stones are quite tricky to draw when they lack strong, defining features but I'm happy with the way the arrangement has come out. While it's a copy of the scene there's also some artistic embellishment in that I've brought out details which were otherwise hidden in shadow. Talking of shadow I've also created a decent level of contrast between them and the highlights - a benefit of drawing in strong light - and the overall balance feels about right. A decent effort.