Sistrum

Here's a closeup of the part I painted yesterday. Such a small space, yet it took almost three hours to finish.

You can see there are deep shadows on the stone above Cleopatra's hands. Painting shadows is not a straight-forward thing.

First of all I never use black. I have done the whole painting so far with blue and brown and white.

Shadows very seldom are black, if they are caused by the sun. Also shadows in themselves have light in them. When we talk about Egypt, the midday sun is so strong it is reflected back fromt he ground as well. And so these shadows here also reflect light from the ground.

(Oh, just noticed the upmost seam between the stones looks like it isn't straight. I must have helt the camera at an angle - in reality it is more or less straight.)