Pressed flora and fauna collages
I make botanical collages of petals, leaves, stems, pods and the occasional insect wing and feather. Nature has created the shapes and colors, I'm just doing some flat flower arranging! The composition is not planned ahead, although I think it is like a jigsaw puzzle. I select, then lay down the biggest pieces, build a bit of the outer edges, then find more pieces that nestle into each other. Then, at the end, I add little whimsical flourishes like tendrils, or tiny flowers to fill in the empty spots.
Note: The butterflies that I use are farmed or collected by indigenous people. The marketing of these and other renewable rainforest resources plays an important role in halting the rapid destruction of the tropical rainforest by providing economic incentives to preserve those forest habitats. The more we love and appreciate these things, the more we want to preserve them.