Eden's Meadow - landscape in mixed media collage

This began as an abstract, which  I was very pleased with at first; but then I started to "improve it" & sure enough I messed it up so badly I hated it. So I painted over it & decided to try a landscape collage.

I painted the sky first & sealed the layers with varnish.  Later I  would go back again w another layer of clouds. I had read that Parrish obtained his glowing luminosity that way... of course he was working in oils, & is amazing!! All paints in this piece were still craft store variety except for the final touch on the clouds when I bought a tube of Liquitex. (love that paint! so thick & buttery!!)

When I was about 3/4 finished with the land & trees I added handmade lace paper to the grass w acrylic matte medium; when dry i added some selected flowers that were carefully torn for soft edges & applied them in the same manner. I painted over most of the flowers & added some free hand.

Finishing up, I'd go back & forth among the grasses, flowers, trees & clouds, balancing out the lights & shadows. It was when i decided to add a fence to accent the neighboring hill that I knew it was finished.

This is the 2nd mixed media collage I've done & took me about 2 weeks to complete. It was a good exercise but I don't feel that I will continue in this direction.

see the horizontal lines across the painting? they are the remnants of the abstract ... next time i'll sand off the texture before i paint over another piece!