Embroidered Collage

I added some more paper to each of these four pieces.  I covered the underdog of the green squares with a lace paper and then a scrap of red and yellow.  It blots out most of the flame, but I liked the result.  I added a light peach mulberry paper around the oval, trying to put a little more texture in the background while leaving it less important than the focus.  I used some pretty scrolling leaf paper to enhance the one pattern with a different color and texture of red, but decided it wasn't enough, so I added the strip of gold paper as well.  I found an interesting dark red and gold piece of paper and tore it to frame the flame paper on the piece with the dark lines.  I was very happy when it turned out to be partially transparent once applied, so up close you can still see some of those dark lines.

I wasn't quite ready to stitch, so I pulled out the Art Stix - the Prismacolor colored pencil leads in stick format - and added more color.  I really like the result of adding extra red and yellow to the bottom right, it tied the piece together and enlivened it.  Some orange in the bottom left helped make that piece pop a bit more.  I added some paisley shapes from the last paper's design in the upper right and some purple marks to mimic the leaves.  I'm a little dubious about this one at the moment.  A few extra lines in different colors were all I needed in the upper right to help emphasize shape.

I'm debating whether I want to go straight to embroidery or find some way of adding more fabric texture first.  I'm leaning toward the former, partly because I just feel like I've developed the design enough that I couldn't do much more with fabric unless I wanted to completely transform the work again.  I'll think on it.