Driftwood .....Artist Rae Andrews

The image above is the finished piece. I am a bad girl, as I brought from Australia some lovely pieces of Melaleuca bark in order to do this collage. :((

I did several pieces like this while in college many years ago, and they all sold, which is a good thing. However I wanted one for myself. So the day before I left Australia for Texas I took a walk and began taking some of the colorful bark to stash in my suitcase.

I used a piece of Strathmore Bristol paper not particularly a pastel paper surface, however it worked well for this. I used matt medium to adhere the bark then worked my drawing around the bark pieces. I finished the piece in pastel and charcoal.

I also left the small flecks of white paper showing through the black areas, fiddly but I like the effect.

My use of the design panels is random, each drawing I did in college had differing panels, it depended on the way I wanted the piece to be seen.(for memory there were around five of these drawings done). My sister had one of them, and it is still just fine after at least 30 years..

This is 23 x 29" in size. I do plan to do more in this vein, who knows when, but this one I think I will keep for myself.. That way a little bit of my home country will always be with me. :))