Here's a shot of the studio.  That's a big graphite drawing in the background.  I am beginning to think about the patterns on the skulls.  

The paintings are towards the back of the table, I have printed scans of them and am working in colored pencil to try different patterns.  

This is hard- the pattern needs to make sense of both the skull and the planets.  

I begin to think about what neanderthals were like.  They were pretty sophisticated, they made tools and altars and buried their dead.  I am assuming they had some sort of hopes and dreams, however dim.  

I've read a couple of stories about them, (fiction) that posits them as being quite gentle. 

We know they took care of their elderly and injured.  

I work with a tall ship motif, then shift to wave patterns.  These reference the planets in a way, but don't make visual sense.  

I try floral motif from earlier Cro mag skulls.  It works?

You can see the shopping bag I got the pattern from in the studio shot.