Three stages of a monochrome hedge sketch (sounds stunningly dull, but bear with me…). First the initial pencil line drawing; then adding grey ink (which blends really well with soft pencil) for the leaf shadows, and white gel-pen for the foliage outline; and finally a wash of white water-colour for the sky. The white gel pen’s a very useful piece of sketching kit; I also used it in the sketch at the bottom for a similarly crisp high-contrast boundary between the sky and the buildings. (Ok, dullish. Especially if read aloud in a monotone.)
Grafwood 5B pencil, dilute Lexington grey water-brush, white gel pen, watercolour, A5 – 1 hour?
Mostly drawing 
This is an amazing hedge sketch, Ed . . . I always have a ton of problems trying to sketch foliage like this. It always ends up looking like a scribbly mess. I will study these process steps, which I really appreciate seeing.
– Tina
Thanks Tina. I find foliage tricky too, so much detail… So I drew one leaf at a time, and then did the shadows from the top, working out which leaf lay on top of which. Lots of tiny steps! Ed
I also like how the white van pops out of the picture
Thanks Alex, you see white vans everywhere so they’re usually invisible! Ed
This is a very good tip, I´ll keep it in mind. I almost prefer the second step of the hedge, the leaves seem to glow against the sky in that one.
Hi Viktoria, the second one’s my favourite too, less ‘life-like’, but more graphically striking… Ed