IsabeauxStudio

This is the next piece in the colored pencil collage series titled "Sticks & Stones."  By the time this piece came around I was starting to lose a bit of steam. Remember the goal was that I needed to complete six pieces in three months.  I would rotate working on three to four pieces at a time to keep me engaged.  I would spend a day or two on one piece and then move on to the next, continuing to rotate the pieces until I began to complete them one by one.

The collage for Sticks and Stones came from a combination of two pictures. The picture at left is of the roots from a tropical tree in Hawaii.  We were taking the road to Hana and stopped to take some photos.  I have the most gorgeous pictures of all kinds of flowers and foliage from that trip, which I use in my pieces over and over.  From that point alone, the trip was well worth it.

The rocky beach photo from came from our trip to Maine.  It is specifically from Birch Beach Park in Owl's Head.  My family has houses in Maine, and I have been going there all my life.   However, it wasn't until Matt & I went together last year, that I really had the opportunity to get out and explore.  We had a great time and found a lot of new places. 

 In addition to the combined photos above, I added butterflies because I liked how the markings on the butterflies wings mimicked the pattern and texture of the stones.

Here is the first layer of color.  Doing the stones in the background became really tedious.

Here is the final piece softened and toned down a bit from the picture above.  My comment on this piece is that it is all the same value.  There is no real point of focus.  I would change the background to be deeper in color.  I want the stones to recede into the background more and let the butterflies move to the foreground.