I hope you enjoy interpreting this painting as a life journey! Like the other paintings in the "Inner Landscapes" series, I intended it to be read left to right. Perhaps reading it right to left could make for interesting stories, too. 

Having told myself not to do any collage till I have more studio space, I found that I couldn't resist. Usually oil pastels aren't used in collage, but hey, I love technical problems! I did some experiments and found that both opaque white oil pastel and the transparent oil pastel blender -- both professional oil pastels from Sennelier -- make it possible to adhere the fibrous unryu paper I love, and here's the result.

Unryu paper has long threads that make it translucent yet quite strong. I've used this paper for many years, since first discovering it in a marvelous store in Chicago, Aiko’s, that specialized in Japanese papers. That store opened a whole new world to me.

By the way, "unryu" means "cloud dragon." Aiko’s has been replaced by Paper Connection, and now many art supply retailers stock gorgeous oriental papers. ‘Twasn’t always so! I still cherish two old, frayed sample catalogs from Aiko’s.

—> Back to the Heart Painter Stories index

This story was originally published Dec. 17, 2014, and was revised and republished August 4, 2020.