Quilled Maple leaf

I have always loved nature. Beautiful landscapes, plants, trees, leaves, flowers, waterfalls .....etc all mesmerize me. I wish I could paint! Maybe I should give it a shot. Anyways, that is a different train of thought all together :)Right now I want to show my latest ( weel not exactly latest but fairly recent ) work. A quilled maple leaf. Maple leaf is probably one the prettiest of leaves....the colours, the shape, it's somehow magical. Here is my take on it. I've used beehive to play with colors and loved it. I don't know whether you can make it out but the beehiving is really teeny weeny and took forever to complete. The outlining was fast enough. But the filling up with tight beehive was really tough on the hands .I actually ended up spraining my wrist! Until then I didn't even know that it is possible to get such injuries while quilling. Oh well, the things you get to learn!! For some of you who like to know how it is done ...here are a few pictures of the project as it progressed. At first the outline of the leaf: And then when that is done you can see how it looks ..... After that is done, I did the veins of the leaf ..I forget to take the pictures at that point :( , sorry ! So we are at the next step that is the filling in with the beehive in different colors. This is the most time consuming and tiring step. Don't be over zealous and try to rush this ....believe me , sprained wrist hurts like hell ( even brushing your teeth or picking up a spoon gets difficult), so be careful ! Luckily I can manage a lot of work with my left hand as well. So the family did not get left hungry. And finally when all is done take pictures like crazy ....before you get it framed . After framing the pictures don't look all that great and the work is hardly seen in the pictures. And finally after framing .....all set to display.