Quilled lotus flower

I finished this quilled lotus flower last fall, almost right after the Sacred lotus seedpod sculpture. I'm fascinated with this marvelous flower, so it's only natural that I often feature it in my art works.

The center was made with three-dimensional quilling using yellow 1/8"-wide (3mm) paper strips. The same technique but light-green 1/8" strips were used for the seedpod. The petals were made of eccentric coils using narrow, 1/16" (1.5mm) paper strips of two different tints of pink.

I created the leaves by painting with watercolors on a special watercolor paper and cutting them out afterwards. The veins were embossed and then painted over with white wax pastel before the coloring. I mounted the leaves at some distance above the base to add some dimension to the composition. The background was created by monotyping with green and blue tints.

Some time later I added a small quilled frog onto one of the leaves, but didn't have an opportunity to photograph the entire picture again. Size of the finished work is 9x9 inches (23x23cm), it is framed in a white shadowbox.