Narcissus and Liriope. Let's Make a Collage

The Let's Make a Collage Community has reached its 60th edition (bases here). I am glad to be among its participants, because facing its weekly challenges since five editions has made me change my perspective in the graphic conception of my sketches. I am grateful for this.
It is true that my work this week is far from the festive feeling, it is rather dramatic, however I consider that making art is always an occasion to celebrate. When we make an artistic work, however modest it may be, we build. That's life, even if it's about death, as in this case.
I would like to give special thanks to @Quantum for their wonderful class for LMAC, How to work with masks, where they teach us how to work whit layer masks. I don't know how I have survived without them so far. Thank you, @Quantum. Thank you, @LMAC.

Photo by @shaka

About the process

The haunting sea-bed photograph of 'Shaka' (you can see it just below) evoked in this case for me the [myth of Narcissus]. I was moved by a representation of the Hungarian painter Gyula Benczúr, so I took that beautiful figure of the young man from him. The painting is impressive, so I'll put it all together before I say goodbye.
I wanted to depict him with his mother, the Liriope naiad.
It is a painful scene, but also sensual. After all, we are talking about the desire. That's why I looked for a Liriope who doesn't look very Greek, but who seems to me to be a woman with a dramatic and sensual face.

The crown and the raven are important elements in my composition. The crown integrates the beauty of Narcissus with the living background of which his body has become a part. The raven is the agent of that transit.

The figures of snails, feathers and other sea creatures are from two scientific artists that I love, love, love: Ernst Haeckel and Adolphe Millot.

About the process, I have already highlighted, was the use of masks. I think they allowed me to achieve a fairly integrated whole. I helped him with a rather subtle vignette, available in the Gimp's tool gallery.