I made it into the top 50!!

Wow! Just heard the news that I made the top 50 of the Lilla Roger’s Global Talent search! I am still in shock I think. I had pretty much convinced myself once I started seeing some of the work that had been submitted that I probably wouldn’t make it any further. So I was totally shocked when I saw my piece listed with all of the others that made it through.

We got the initial brief a couple of weeks ago. I was both excited and scared once I saw it. Wall Art? On no! Not sure I can do that. But terrariums? Oh yes. I love terrariums, despite the fact that I have yet to keep one alive. My little boy is totally fascinated by them, particularly the ones that have animals or people inside them. We’ve made a few of our own over the last year. Though now we’ve had to resort to fake plants. He delights in choosing the miniature things that will go inside from our local art store. He has spent hours and hours arranging crazy little scenes, totally lost in a world of his own imaginings.

I thought that ‘Imagine’ could be a good word to use as inspiration for my piece. I decided upon a woodland theme, and it kind of grew from there. I hand painted lots of textures in gouache and watercolour, and scanned them in. I drew bits in pencil and ink and charcoal and scanned them in too. I painted leaves and toadstools in watercolour and then collaged everything together digitally.

It was good that I had a few days to work on it. At first it was all a bit of a mess. Everything was green. I always find it good to just sleep on it. When I wake in the morning and look at it all again with fresh eyes, I know exactly what is wrong, what needs to go, what needs to change and what can stay.

And here is my final piece.

And if you haven’t already, please look at the gallery of work from all of the people who entered. There are some amazing pieces in there!

And you can see the rest of the top 50 here