Small Blue Irises - Mixed Media Collage - 5x7

I just love it when a piece seems to "paint itself," and you artists out there know what I mean. It's a piece that comes together with almost no effort and turns out as well or even better than you imagined it.

I've used irises as a subject matter many times before, but never created any as small as these. I used a piece of scrapbooking paper that I found at Michaels as my background. I frequently make "keepsake" collages using wedding invitations as the subject and then trying to match the bride's colors in the collage and I have found that scrapbooking papers to be excellent in these projects. So I have lots of scraps of this lying around.

Over the background paper I layered a delicate piece of Uminami, which is a Japanese lace paper in the shape of arches. You can just barely make out the fine little arch-shaped fibers.

The leaves and stems are from a gold marbled paper called "Forest" by Black Ink. Almost all of my favorite art papers are made by Black Ink and I particularly love their marbled collection.

The iris blossoms are from origami paper. I chose this paper for its color, but was delighted to see that the finished look resembles cloisonne. I was also delighted that I was able to cut all the pieces using scissors. I had expected to have to use an exacto knife and was relieved that that wasn't the case. All my life I've been a klutz with knives and I have the scars and one damaged finger to prove it!

Oh, wait, the dragonfly! I certainly didn't cut that out with scissors! That was punched from gold metallic crinkle paper... another favorite of mine.

Lastly I added my own personal embellishments with Sharpie markers, gold acrylic wash and gold fabric paint.

I find that I like the delicate, almost Asian look, of the piece. I also like the way it makes me think of spring. I sound pretty pleased with myself, don't I? Every once in a great while artists make something that truly makes themselves happy.