Altered Art: Dark Hedges Shadowbox

On a recent trip to Co. Antrim (Northern Ireland), I visited the Dark Hedges. Now made famous by ‘Game of Thrones’ using it as the King’s Road, Dark Hedges is an avenue of ancient beech trees. As a memento of the visit, I’ve created this layered shadowbox using a photo I took. The card is 300gsm to maintain the stiffness of each layer, particularly of the branches which are too slim for glue/foam pads.

Dark Hedges shadowbox

I cheated a little by duplicating a couple of the trees, tweaking their branches rather than creating five trees from scratch. I think with the intermingling of the branches, there is sufficient distraction for me to get away with it šŸ™‚

I found it tricky to get the depth of field and wonder if the left-hand side needs a third tree. Overall, the 3D effect seems to be effective – which is just as well as it took ages to achieve! There are seven layers front to back, with the road slanted front to back to emphasise the depth of field.