Preliminary studies for next piece

With the new year comes new fortuitous situation for me; I no longer work a full-time day job and have afforded myself a dedicated block of studio time each week to focus on creating artwork. I am eager to start realising some of the ideas that until now have only existed in note form, scrawled on scraps of paper tucked inside my sketchbook. Essentially I will be continuing in a similar thematic and stylistic vein to "A Cause for Celebration". I have a lot of material planned, which should hopefully come together as a unified body of work further down the line. 

Alongside a series of thumbnail composition sketches, I have also been working on a couple of detailed studies over the past few weeks, trying to work out some technical kinks before I execute the first of my planned pieces. The first prep drawing is of a solitary magpie, which will play a central role in the narrative of the final work:

The second element will be a small collection of toy marbles:

I learned a lot from producing these sketchbook studies and I now feel confident that I can render the final piece to the standard that I envision. I just have rebuilt my still life shadow box, settled on the lighting and I am now massaging a few details of the composition. I plan to progress the piece over the coming weeks and will be sure to post an update or two along the way.