The Gifts She Gave to Herself

This image tells my story. I put art on the back burner for a long time, and when I finally got out of my own way and made art a priority, I found that sharing my artistic gifts with the world benefitted me more than anyone else.

You can see a combination of types of images collaged together. The airplane was a photo from National Geographic, the only magazine I know which uses a printing process which does not set the ink permanently, allowing me to alter the appearance of the pages. The flowers in the lower left came from one of my gardening catalogs. I cut them out and covered them with transparent rice papers to soften their appearance and add physical texture. The hummingbird on the hollyhock is my own photo, taken at the Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield. I printed it in black and white on craft paper, then hand colored it with water-based paint, and cut around it to give it an outline. The black paints are my way of highlighting elements and showing the motion of energy.
 
2018 – 48” x 12” x 2”
Mixed Media: handmade papers and paper ephemera, my photography and digital art, oil paint on wood panel.