My research details the creative and technical process, inner meaning, and artistic influences I used to create my final thesis exhibition entitled "Fragments of Nature/Laid to Rest." The written thesis documents the aspects of combining the traditional studio approach with the digital process creating a new artistic direction in my artwork. The thesis exhibit was a series of 25 digital prints created from a collection of natural objects such as grass, animal bones, and horsehair, which were digitally intermingled with encaustic paintings, drawings, and photographs depicting the essence of life cycles and a return to the earth. The inspiration for the artwork involved a specific experience near my family's farm in northwest Iowa about the life and death of a horse. My experiences, when made visual, are emotional responses to events and memories from my life, making my artwork an autobiographical record. The digital prints were created with a software program, Adobe Photoshop[superscript registered trademark symbol], by manipulating scanned layers of real objects and hand-rendered images through the interplay of color and light on the computer. The final images encapsulate personal memories into "fragments of nature," suspended visual feelings about a time and place that will never pass this way again-an ephemeral experience "laid to rest" in the context of self through the process of making visual images.