This was a still life from an oil painting class. There were two other components to the assignment; a monochrome study and a full color study. Each piece had to be a different scale. I did an 11x18 charcoal study and a 8 1/2 x 11 pastel study. If I can come up with them I'll post them here. The skull is from one of our sheep which fell victim to a coyote and the vases I bought in a second hand store specifically for this project. The vase on its side was bronze with a patchy patina. I found it challenging to render the roundness of the vase while maintaining the various colors on its surface. I really enjoyed modeling the skull and the overhead lights reflected in the center vase. I'm still not happy with the rendering of the brown vase on the right, it feels flat and course to me, although everyone else seems to like it. The most criticism I've received is the upper background not having enough going on in it, although I did vary the shading and texture.
