Exercise 2 -Tonal study of bones and shells

I borrowed a skull, (though the poor chap has a window cut in the back where they got his brains out) and set him up with a light source which was promptly blocked by the cat....

After suggesting that the cat sat somewhere else I made 2 drawings. The first I did in white conte pencil on black paper

Even with a strong light source there were no shadows on the black background. The chunk cut out of the back makes the shape look a bit odd but I liked this angle as I find 3/4 views a bit challenging. I don't think I've succeeded in making the back of the skull look solid and I'm blaming the cutout window. I tried filling it in but you could tell I'd made it up and it looked worse.
For completeness (and because I always have to have at least 2 goes at any project) I repeated my drawing on grey paper with a 4B pencil and a white Derwent coloursoft pencil for highlights

Better maybe? though still a bit flat. I think I was a bit generous with the white at the back of the skull so I removed some of that and exaggerated the shadows which I think is a bit better.

The skull was borrowed overnight so I put it on the mantelpiece to keep it safe and it made a good composition. This is blue and green Graphitint  pencils for subtle colour and Aquatone sticks for the areas of bolder colour

The position of the candle hid the difficult area at the back of the skull but this was quite accidental.