Exploring Black and White shells

Following on from my earlier post about artist's who use inversions of black on white and white on black I did some drawings of shells on white and back paper:

This one has unfortunately been drawn on by my daughter

I wanted to cut this out of lino, the top half black on white the bottom half white on black. However this didn't really work. The black was supposed to be the table but it didn't look right.

It looked like it was floating, not sitting on the table. Also, I cut too much away from the shadowed side of the shells and needed to add more light on the light side.

I cut off the background and added a bit of white which improved this. The shell on the left still did not have clear shadows and light.

I needed to add a lot of white to get this to make sense visually. I realise now that trying to make the bottom half of the shells darker didn't make visual sense and I should have been more true to the shadows and contours of the object.  This finished print I used caligo safe dry inks on thai banana tissue paper. Reducing the contrast from black and white to dark red and cream also softened the image. 

What was successful?

I am pleased with this finished print, particularly the textures. I found it a very interesting learning experience. I did learn some important points on this, most notably being true to the image and its form and shadows or it wont make visual sense, an important lesson to take into my next project.What was not successful?I didn't achieve an image that shows much in the way of experimenting with black on white / white on black,
Ideas to be developed:
Next time I attempt to recreate an object like this I will be much more selective about the lighting. I would like to try using lamps to create strong shadows giving me more contrast to develop in my print.