I’m truly not sure how I feel about this, but I’m so far in I can’t quit now.
I used medium charcoal pencil and the non-pine trees and the river and hard charcoal pencil on everything else (fences, house details, etc).
Using those paper tubes (tortillons? Blending sticks?) I started on the snowy areas – on the ground and the tops of houses. The blending is not as smooth as it should be, and I haven’t decided how I feel about gray snow. I do like that it’s adding dimension.
Tomorrow (or maybe later tonight – depends on how I’m feeling) I’ll finish up with the large area blending, hopefully smoothing it out, and softening up the lines on the remaining trees (both kinds) and the houses, etc. I don’t want to add shading to those, and I’d like to keep some white areas. At the same time, it’s pretty stark right now, and I’m not convinced that is the look I want.