It is that time of month again. The latest piece in the Round Robin Collage needed to be played with and sent on its way to the next person. This piece was the most difficult for me, so far. Here it is as I received it. I am the fourth person to work on it.

It had a shiny painted background. There was a collage of paper pieces in the center section. The top section has a bone wired to the center. In the upper left is a very complex postcard with Angelina fibers, tyvek and beads. There are beads scattered across the piece with some clusters on the tight side. I didn’t know what to do until I saw a post on Mrs Mel’s blog. She showed an in progress painting with a paper towel as part of the background.

Here is a paper towel that I painted with colors complementary to the piece.

While it was still damp, I tore holes in it and tore the edges so that they were not straight. I collaged it to the piece and added some ribbon strips that complemented the colors, but had nice texture. I placed the holes in the napkin so that bead clusters would show through.

I took some of the torn strips and placed them on the left side of the piece.

I then found some words that fit the emotion of this piece: surreal, enigma, wild earth and creativity, and collaged them.

I used a marker to color over the words to make them fit into the background.

Here is the result.

This was a difficult challenge, but I really enjoyed working outside my box. I’m having a lot of fun doing these.