This was a much more difficult edit for me — these five are my favorite at the moment, but I went ahead and ordered small prints of about 40 for real decision making purposes before I commit to large scale metallic prints.

Images from another shoot, this time with a different kind of red-and-yellow tulip and also a white-and-pink tulip, are downloading as I type.

I was reviewing some shots looking for things to send to my stock agency and my eye was caught by this shot of “Love in a Mist”, aka Nigella Damascena, which I shot while on a walk in the neighborhood with my kids. There are a couple of big blooms not in focus because of the narrow depth of field, which means even though I like the composition it can’t go to the agency, but it still has potential:

Original "Love in a Mist" photograph

And, probably because I had just done the Dandelion Squadron piece the night before, I thought “Gee, those look like stars”

Step1: Take out all (well, almost all) the greenery:

Doesn’t look like much yet; so now to create a dark space field behind; this isn’t a pure black (which just looks dull in print) but a black-purple-blue swirl with specks of stars courtesy Flaming Pear’s Glitterato plug-in. (In general, I don’t use plug-ins; I haven’t found many that improve my workflow enough to be worth the money; also, I’m generally just a little bit cussed about doing things from scratch in Photoshop. However, Glitterato and LunarCell are so much faster than doing it by hand while being JUST AS GOOD that I think they’ve paid for themselves.). Having the dark background in already makes the flower “stars” sparkle, plus the plant structure I actually left in at very low opacity can now be seen, and adds to the “nebula” feeling. Also, the range of focus on the blooms works here, because it adds to the feeling of depth.

And let’s add some “fairy magic” style stars, ’cause let’s face it, it’s shaping up to be a cute, sweet little piece. (Which probably means a shoggoth will sneak into the final version..)

So it’s almost done; flowers in space, awfully pretty, but there’s nothing *happening*. Clearly what I need here is a spaceship, all shiny and chrome, but how about a nice organic shape — maybe round, with petals? Or space-bumblebee intent on pollination?

Time to go play in Vue again. At least for this I won’t have to fight with the terrain editor….

(10 hours pass, mostly spent outside and elsewhere. These things need to simmer, and too long in front of the computer gives me headaches)

Apparently it really wanted a planet. (Because once you have flowers in space, the rest of physics is also out the window…) I don’t fight the Muse.  The shiny metal flower spaceships did get made, they just didn’t look right with the Nigella, and may show up elsewhere, so we have something a little more pulptastic instead.

Of course, how to crop it probably counts as more than a minor tweak, and there are three versions I currently can’t decide between:

What I think is the hardest is trying to figure out what best serves the story, rather than just being the prettiest; I have a sneaking suspicion when I do these landscapes (and there are a lot, they just all seem to take at least a year from conception to print; Summer’s Exile is the only one currently for sale) that the story I’m trying to tell is too heavily encoded in my own personal symbology to be legible, or even intriguing, to the viewer.

Edit: of course, a mere day after posting this, I decided what it really needed was the action of birth. So this one gets added to the possibilities:

And I am still not sure if  it’s going anywhere, or will be eventually filed under “Technical Exercise.” It’s definitely not “done”

Model: Anna.

Clothing: also by Anna.
Accessories provided by the Seattle Aquarium

More coming! I haven’t been this productive in a short period time since, oh, I had to put together my thesis show. Aren’t deadlines wonderful?

Model is Jaime.

There is still something I’m not happy with in the relationship of the figure to the rest of the piece, and I’ve lost all hope that my Elements series is going to be visually cohesive. Then again, if I only finish a new one every 18 months, does that really matter? (I have *sketches* for at least 5 more, but casting, scouting locations, and everything else in my very tight schedule means, well, prolific I am not.)

Joe Lee Davidson

(acrylic on canvas)

and Alma Chaney:

(acrylic on canvas)

And I’m really excited about it!

I will primarily be showing work from the Space Whimsy series, but possibly also some of the newer mixed-media body pieces.

Artspawn Studios
13931 Bear Creek Rd
Woodinville, WA 98077
425 881-2192
lisa@artspawn.org

Stop by to share in art, food and conversation. See Artspawn’s new facility!

My Art Track panel schedule:

Friday, Nov 17:
2 pm: Collecting Science Fiction Art

Saturday, Nov 18:
10 am: Creating your art portfolio
2 pm: Fantasy Photography
This one is my solo gig, full description is:
Fantasy Photography from 1850 to the present
Fairies, Aliens, and Saints, oh my! Explore the Who and the How of Fantasy Photography from its earliest practitioners to now, including a slideshow and how-tos for any tech level.

A few of the artists I’ll be showing and discussing include:
Henry Peach Robinson
Oskar Rejlender
Anne Brigman
Julia Margaret Cameron
William Mortenson
Jerry Uelsmann
Scott Mutter
Suza Scalora
Margaret Dean
Tracy Cornett
John Picacio
Timothy Lantz
…and more!

Cosmic Cat at Play
(unfinished, work in progress, photomontage)