stilllife of self made bust

Hi,

for this study I first made a skull bust out of soft white plastic-clay (I don't really know what it is composed of, if you want to know, write me a pm and I try to look it up :)

Then I placed a candle next to it until I was satisfied with the composition.

I tried to work out the core shadow and have a warm / cold contrast going on. Since I painted both lightsources fairly equal in intensity they compete a bit.

What I learned:

- Occlusion shadows were important, to increase the reality of the picture
- I should focus my hard edges on the important parts
- the upper sketchbook really is not a black color, where the cool light from outside hits it. It is more of a really desaturated blue. Thanks to James Gurney for bringing that to my attention.
- the specularity on the lower sketchbook has a really hard edge, because it is super smooth
- the molten wax in the candle has an edge, below which it is a bit darker, while close the "wall" of the candle is a highlight
- the longer I take to work out shadows, the more likely they will be at another place, because the sun moves, so I have to be "fast"

I enjoyed it a lot, here is the picture.

Cheers