My teacher Thich Nhat Hanh passed away recently, and I've always loved illustrating his words as a means of combining mindfulness and creativity.

At the moment I have a slight obsession with pebbles!
The pebbles in this piece represent a zen circle, very common to Buddhist teachings.

For this piece I decorated the paper using specific colours from the Coloricombo Instagram challenge. Have a look at the last image to see the paper decorated before cutting the pebbles and letters out.
I began by texturing the handmade paper with random circles of wax from a candle before overpainting, then cutting out each pebble and each letter individually and arranging and gluing it onto the backing paper.
This particular colour combination is airforce blue, vermillion, acid yellow and burnt orange. I'm sure you can see I favour the blue over the yellows and oranges! :)

I don't think I've ever grown out of cutting and sticking as a child!! :)