Fantastical Flowers

There's a lot of talking about a "word" for the year...I'm not sure I understand what  the word is supposed to represent - your intent, your focus...those sound good to me. For me, it's a goal. I want to LEARN this year. To expand, to try new things, to have fun. I've signed up for a couple of on-line classes including Lifebook 2013. About two weeks ago I did Christy Tomlinson's fabulous project. It was a blast to make.

Guess what the flowers are made of? Give up? Coffee filters and tin foil!! Okay there's a bit of tissue paper and napkin parts too; what a gas. You stamp or stencil the coffee filters, tear them into apart, and then layer them on tin foil with matte medium and then cut out the petals.

Or cut out circles and scrunch them up. Imagine all the shapes and colors and things you could make this way....

It was also really fun to make a LIGHT collage behind the flowers...Christy used alcohol inks for a great pop of color on her collage - you can see my sweep of yellow right next to the flower above.

And to close the circle, what did I learn? When making a collage work vertically and horizontally which helps give the piece structure, and don't be afraid to have a light-light and a dark-dark within your flower petals. The contrast is what make the piece come alive.