Pastel Still Life

I planned my composition for my pastel still life by first figuring out my placement of the objects, and then doing a thumbnail sketch.  A thumbnail sketch is a smaller, zoomed in version of the bigger picture.  It is the focus of the main object in a picture.  A viewfinder helped me decide on my composition because it helped me focus on the placement of my three objects and how I wanted it to look.  I made the items appear three dimensional by shading with both light and dark colors.  I created a light source by making one side of the still life lighter and one side darker.  I also used cast shadows to create a light source.