Finished Poppies

I finished my poppy project for the "Sticky Fingers" class by Ellen Lindner.  I added a few more blades of grass and fused all the pieces to the background. That worked...but in the end I decided to also go over the whole thing with the diluted medium. It seemed to honor the intention of the class and sealed the edges of the fabric since you can't stitch this kind of project.

Ellen uses a black permanent marker to add definition on her glued collages...creating the illusion of stitching.  I was really afraid I would mess it up....so chose to use Pan Pastels. With a small stiff brush I used the red...with a bit of yellow to create shadows and definition around the petals. I also defined the edges of the fabric with the dark blue and created a little bit of shadow on the stems. You can see it a little better in the image at the top...it's subtle so was hard to photograph. The sun was streaming in the window when I took this picture below.

I don't often hang my own artwork in my house...but this piece may actually live in my kitchen for a while. It goes well with my bright orange trivet and cobalt blue glass pieces...and ties in nicely with my wall tiles.

I'm happy with my result and will certainly use this technique again. This was a fun class!  Thanks Ellen!