Nature Art Challenge

Look who's been looting graveyards for fallen tree bark and other random natural objects for collage/installations?! That's right, it's me. I was given a challenge by my professor of my latest course, Beyond the Pages at DKDS. It's focusing on telling stories by creating illustrations in 3D.

So, we as a class had to each create 2 pieces as part of a 3 part process. First, we needed to collect our natural (not manmade) objects, then photograph them. Ok, done. Then take those objects and make something, without any man made tools (i.e. tape, glue etc...). Right-o, now what? Then make something that combines the natural objects and manmade objects to form a manmade/natural collaboration(even though we as human beings are apart of nature....that's another story).

Anyway, below you'll find what I came up with- oh yea, I almost forgot to mention an important fact: we needed to follow a theme. The theme was mainly a collection of words like, Black Ocean, Underground, Midnight, Nocturnal and Darkness. There it is! 

Disclaimer: This project still needs some final composition pictures, in water! Stay tuned-they'll be posted soon.

This piece was the totally natural objects....

Feathers, beet root juice I put through a juicer and raw wool (+honey as an adhesive)

This one was the nature + manmade objects. Final elements in composition.

In process shot of natural elements.

Chestnut detail.

In process shot of overall composition.

Detailed shot of the hand dyed egg in beet juice.

Playing with nature....

Whittled live branches dipped in beet juice. 

Beet root juice and a whittled feather = quill!