The collage is finished! Steven and I will frame this -the frame is already ordered -thanks to Steven! This collage will be entered into the Open Juried Show at the West Hartford Art League next week. Wish me Luck, that it gets accepted! If it doesn't get in, I will still have a lovely framed piece to hang in our home, so nothing is lost. My new art friend, Carla Kurt saw this collage today and she really liked it, so her reaction helps to give me confidence. She is the one who commented earlier in the metamorphosis saying it looked like it an enchanted grotto . . . and that is what I have decided to call it. I was able to see her latest painting in person, as she brought it with her for me to see, and I was blown AWAY. Even though she states the size of it on her blog -- I was unprepared for how large this painting is and how full it is of feeling. Carla and I share an affinity for the same type of marbled paper (green & gold, orange & gold) and it is really interesting to see how we use this paper in different and yet similar ways.

I worked a lot on this piece today, adding to it and layering with papers quite a bit, wondering if I would know when to stop! This collage started with an image transfer of a photo of leaves, snow & ferns, directly onto a canvas board. I did the same transfer separately onto a piece of fabric, cut this up and used parts of it on this collage. I ripped LOTs of handmade & mulberry paper and applied it to the canvas with gel medium and I started and finished working on this piece by covering the canvas with Teal Dye-Na-Flow (paint) by Jacquard. There is a bit of rubber stamping in there and the spiral shapes come from a sheet of handmade paper, ripped out singly and applied with gel medium. There are gold skeleton leaves added with gel medium, and a few small rocks and pieces of shell added with E-6000 goop glue to give thepiece more texture. I also did nature printing using ferns and evergreens both on paper that was applied later and also directly on the canvas. Here is what this collage looked like 3 weeks ago when I first started:

Here are 2 close-ups of what it looks like now, showing left & right sides: