The Alternative Path

So I really love my mixed media piece that I turned in for 2-D Design.  It was a concept piece relating three sort of random things about you into one cohesive piece.  So, here it is.  Take it in.  Let me know your first reaction to it -- good or bad.

The colors are more intense than the photo.  My three things were rebel, the many paths life can take and dogs (of course).  I had so many ideas going on in my head and for sure that comes out in the piece.  One thing I really need to do is self-edit.

Let me point out a few things, in the left part of the piece is a very plain green grass hill and a very straight and narrow pathway with the typical milestones in a person's life -- birth, school, career, date, marriage, 2.5 kids, etc. The pathway is all monochromatic which means one color family (alternating path stones in grays) and uses more rectilinear lines to show its formality.  Coming out of the school path stone is an alternative path.  It is more organic (I used glue and sand to construct it) and uses curvilinear line which are more natural.  Along the alternative pathway there are various crops of different places I've been.  Last, but not least, there are various pictures of the girls however I have altered them into other things.  Bailey is a spider, Phoebe is a honeybee, Sophie is a butterfly, Izzie is nesting in a giant flower and Viola is a gorilla looking at a bunch of bananas.  The bright patches of color show my rebel nature as does the change in texture from one side to the other.

Not sure I would hang this in my living room -- maybe my studio!

Materials -- canvas (I think it is a 24X36 so fairly large).  MODGE PODGE  Lots and lots of Modge Podge!  All the paint is actually Copic Markers that I airburshed onto the canvas.  I don't recomend hand coloring canvas with Copics since it is so porous, it will soak all your ink in.  The intensity of the colors is due to many layers of different markers.