Below are the three original artworks I will be attempting to recreate:

Out of the three mediums for this task, I have the most experience in pencil, but it has also been a very long time since I did a full pencil drawing like this. I was sad to see just how rusty I was.

After trying out this kind of shading, I am astounded at just how light a hand Augustus John must have when doing this soft linear shading. This is definitely a lot harder to replicate than it looks.

I enjoyed using dip pen and ink, but it really hurts when a splotch of ink lands on your work, especially if it happens towards the end of the piece. The level of detail you can achieve with the dip pen is incredible, but it also made me impatient towards the end because of the sheer amount of hatching lines.

A side-by-side comparison​

Seeing them side-by-side like this has made me realise the darkest areas need to be even more saturated with cross-hatching to reach the same tonal range as the original. I notice some of the smaller lines in the background have not been picked up by the scanner, but I am otherwise quite proud of my copy. One part I found difficult when following Peake's style of not having distinct outlines in his work was creating definition within my piece. I feel the balance between tone and contrast may be the key to this.

As this was my first time using scraperboard, I tested out the pressure and the best way to handle the tools for the smoothest marks before moving onto parts of the actual piece. Using a sharp tool with minimal pressure was the best way to go. This medium requires a lot of care and precision.

This copy was definitely the most challenging for me, but I think I took a decent stab at it as it appears quite similar to the original. However, towards the end when I was scratching out the straw/wheat, it became more difficult to make light and smooth lines and I believe it was due to the decreasing sharpness of my tools.

To make sure the background could be distinguished from the all-green composition, I went for a textural approach, using a sponge with diluted acrylic for this natural appearance.

These are progress shots, along with some alternate ways of folding throughout the process.

This is the final outcome. I chose the red background since that felt suitably dramatic for the photograph. I tried lighting the pattern from various angles to achieve the starkest shadows for maximum visual impact.

The letter 'R' made the cylinder feel easy. However, in my opinion, I did a decent job since it stayed intact for a while. Perhaps paper glue may have been better than double-sided tape, because for some reason, the card would not stay fully adhered to each other.

The cylinder was by far the most difficult to make. I can confidently say I made a perfect cube and pyramid, at least.

As well as lining up the letters, I made sure the edges of corresponding letters also lined up by keeping the ruler in the same position and cutting them simultaneously.

I drew a plain bowl of noodles with an egg on top because this felt reasonably detailed as a paper cutting, but still had decorative elements that formed a pattern to tie in everything together.

I realise now that it was wrong to choose foamboard for my shapes since although it had smooth and crisp edges, the edges also needed to be hard. It took a humongous effort with my plastic ruler to get this level of definition. I would use thicker card for the shapes if I were to re-attempt this task.

For the crisp and sharp edges, I used a craft knife to cut both the card and the foamboard.