In preparation to resume work on Fragile Heart, I played with all the shades that I may be calling upon. Some people have a very good eye for value, but I'm not sure that I am one of them. The color is distracting to me, but this is a skill that improves with practice.
Below is the result of my morning exercise. The top two images show where I started, and the bottom two show where I ended up after several modifications. Its pretty tricky with reflection, as well as with the mottled shades of the Mexican smalti, but I do see improvement, all thanks to the black-and-white feature in my photo editor.
I could go on endlessly making adjustments, but I think I'll stop now and hope for the best.