Crocus Collage

I just put the finishing touches on my latest collage and managed to take some decent photos even though it's so gloomy here. This one was an experiment. I got an idea in my head and decided to give it a whirl. I wanted the crocus to look delicate so I made some crystalline paper without color. This time I coated both sides of the tissue paper with gloss medium and it made it much sturdier. When the paper was completely dry I used a couple of stencils to add the poke-a-dots. I had started out by rolling on black acrylic paint over the entire surface of my paper aka substrate. Then I created my background with torn paper collage. For the blooms I painted each petal with white acrylic paint and gave them all a coat of gloss medium so I could add color with alcohol ink. I wanted the color layer underneath the surface. The crystalline paper was added after color was applied petal by petal and when that was dry I used sepia fluid acrylic to outline everything. I will say it looks great at a distance but appears kind of dirty up close due to the addition of the sepia acrylic. I do love the outlined look, though.