Having trouble with a collage

The gallery where I sell my spirit dolls is having a mixed media show this year with the theme "Dreams of the Land." I love the theme, and my first thought was to do a collage using painted and stamped fabric, photo transfers and embroidery and beading. I would have a hiker gazing out over the desert whose sky was filled with petroglyph figures of past desert dwellers.

I got off to a good start with some fabric from my painted stash and a photo transfer of myself in my hiking gear gazing into the distance ...

... which I filled with stamped petroglyph figures and spirals using transparent and metallic fabric paints. 

I should have stopped there, but I thought it looked unfinished so I outlined each figure with a blue Pigma pen for more definition.

I still thought it looked unfinished, so I pulled out my Derwent watercolor pencils, which I probably haven't used in 10 years. It's been so long that I had to watch some Youtube tutorials on how to use them and activate them with water.

After I colored in each figure, I went over it with a brush dipped in water to make the colors bloom and become permanent.

I loved the effect of layering and blending different colors and had a lot of fun with it!

I let some of them fade into the background to add to the dreamy quality of the piece. Not outlining them with the Pigma pen would've made it even dreamier.

Then I fused the photocopy of myself onto the fabric and embroidered around it with a dusky purple wool thread. (I didn't have any good photos of a sitting hiker from the back, and it was too hot to take photos outside, so I took this sitting on my living room ottoman with a timer.)

I added the circular photograph of the desert to cover up an orange spiral that I had outlined with a gold marker that made the spiral too overpowering. I love the individual parts of the collage, but I don't love the final outcome. 

I think it's one hot mess!

So I put my hiker on another piece of painted fabric. Then I noticed a female figure formed by the painted lines and embroidered over her outline, thinking that would make it a "dreamy" collage. 

I had mixed feelings about the embroidered figure, but I went ahead and free-motion quilted the background, following the patterns made by the paint.

And it was another dud! 

I thought the embroidered figure looked hokey and not very good. But I like the colors, so I'll cut it up and make spirit dolls with it.

So, I'm starting a third one.  Here are my paints and stamps and I've printed some more photos on fabric (another technique I hadn't used in many years). Mercifully, these are small pieces, about 18 inches square, so I haven't wasted much fabric. I'm considering it a learning experience, although I do have the nagging feeling that I'm losing my touch.

Have a colorful day