Digital/Analog Project

Here's the final outcome of my digital/analog project. I was inspired by this time of year, with the transition between fresh, green summer leaves and dead, gnarly ones. I drew a parallel between the veins in human hands and those of the leaves, and related it to aging in our own species. I'm still not exactly sure what my message is; perhaps it's not a particular statement, but more of a question. Maybe it's supposed to provoke thought in regards to how we view aging, and how we percieve those who are less or more advanced in this process? Or maybe I'm overanalyzing this...

Anyway, there are lots and lots of layers in this image. I used the burn and dodge tools, the clone stamp, and the brush tool, amongst other things. I applied a gradient to the background and a Gausian blur (if that's how it's spelled...). The background is a layer of bark, followed by some of my wild flower photos and a photo of this green and white paisley tile I found on a tabletop covered in a mosaic. I also drew pictures of branches and scanned them in, some of which I moved while they were being scanned to get a "warped" effect. I also drew different hands of different ages and genders and mixed them into the background at different opacity levels. The hands are overlayed with leaves, and then I added a little bark texture with the clone stamp. I emphasized wrinkles and shadows using the brush tool and the burn tool.

I know I'm forgetting some aspects of the creative process and I didn't list the steps in order, but hopefully you get a feel for the craziness that went into this collage! I'm not sure how I feel about the final product... it didn't turn out as I had planned exactly, but then again I can't say I had a completely clear-cut plan from the getgo. I think I'm happy with it overall, but there are definitely aspects that could use tweaking. I'd like to reduce the darkness of the shadow below the young hand on top. I might also make the young hand more vibrantly green so that it looked even more fresh and new (I had some difficulty with these things when I tried to fix them before).

Any feedback is welcome! :D