Here are the drills I completed before moving onto my sketch:

Straight Lines

I discovered that for me, I draw straight lines best when using the overhand grip (in a diagonal 45 degree orientation) or the relaxed tripod grip (in a vertical orientation), and I need to keep the speed quite fast. It was interesting to do this as I often default back to using the standard tripod grip and forget that other ways of holding my pencil produce much better results!

 

Curved Lines

I found that in general, the overhand grip works best for me when drawing curves, with my hand lifted off the paper - unless they are very tiny when the tripod grip works best and I can use my hand as a pivot. 

 

Squares Rectangles Triangles

I found that using what I had found from drawing straight lines really transferred to the shape practice - using the overhand grip (in a diagonal 45 degree orientation) or the relaxed tripod grip (in a vertical orientation) made drawing straight sided shapes much easier and produced better results.

 

Circles Ovals

I found using a box to help me draw a circle or oval inside worked well for me, although drawing them freehand felt more natural.

 

The Mini Exercise:

 

I found that turning the image upside down is quite important for me to do at the beginning which makes it easier for me to observe and identify the shapes before my brain takes over!

 

I also have found it helps if I just focus on one part of the reference at a time, to try not to get overwhelmed by more complex shapes like the flower.

 

Here is my reference photo with the first pencil layer, and then the final pen drawing layer:

 

Overall I am quite happy with how my drawing turned out - There is still a part of the arms which hold the silver bowl which need adjusting, but I'm happy overall.

 

I found breaking the process down into looking at the shapes really helpful - I think if I tried to draw from this reference straight away without thinking about the shapes first it would seem quite overwhelming.