Canvas - Inspired by Finnabair - with Crafty Individuals' Image

I've been so inspired by the beautiful and evocative art of Finnabair - Anna Dabrowska, and I know so have many others. I've been thinking for some weeks of attempting something similar on a canvas and wasn't sure I could pull it off. She works mainly with photographs, and I wanted to use something else in their place as I don't have any photos to use. Another of my fears was, would the gesso 'take' on so many different items, and would the items fall off? I was also very scared about composition. But my main fear was, how do I know when it is done, and when to stop? All you can do, I guess, is go for it, and I use very cheap canvases and most of the other bits I picked up off the floor of my craft room so there wasn't much to lose! As far as when to stop is concerned I have decided to blog it now, and I might do some tweaks, and possibly show you again and see what you think.



A bit more of a close up of the frame and bird but difficult to see
 

The main image is a particularly gorgeous one from Crafty Individuals from one of their Miniature books. One of my aims was to try to keep this as the focus and try not to drown it, despite all the other bits I was adding, as I know this is a tendency of mine. Another thing Colin has pointed out is that I am scared of white areas, so I was aiming to keep a lot of white. I was also aiming for maximum texture, but in the background rather than highlighting it as I normally would, which felt strange. One of the things I may tweak is that you cannot really see the bird on the bird cage (top right) or the ornate frame surrounding the lady, and I have an idea for this which I may re-blog but what do you think? Do you think it matters?



The bottom portion showing the raised areas done with a stencil

Love to know what you think of this first attempt at a new style for me. I will definitely be doing this again and trying to improve. I can see it being very addictive. Thanks for your thoughts!