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Featured Image: details of Three Arches from May 2026.

May 2026

What can I say about the month of May other than – boy did it get a tad warm!! Thankfully it was mainly during the day and the majority of nights were quite a bit cooler. I don’t enjoy the hotter weather, which is probably why I like to go to Norway for our holidays 😀

Back in the creating room, there were 5 Sundays to occupy my time. During which I created quite an eclectic mix of artwork.

From Another World

This was created on 3rd May and was inspired by the date of the following day, 4th May, which also known as Star Wars day thanks to the saying in the films “May the Force (fourth) be with you!”

It’s a portrait depicting a female species on another planet in a galaxy far, far away.

The image is made up from 3 background layers merged and blended together. 4 elements were used to create the subject and background artefacts. I then used a colour look-up to give a cool tonality to the whole image and added a subtle shaft of light to finish it off. 

Portrait of a female on another planet in a galaxy far, far away

Into the Forest

Into the Forest started off as an original photograph taken at nearby Savernake Forest, using Intentional Camera Movement. ICM is a creative photographic technique where you deliberately move your camera during a long exposure to create abstract, painterly, or impressionistic images. I then did a couple of tweaks and boosted the colour saturation in Photoshop.

Abstract tree art

 

Musings of a Dragonfly

I’ve recently started listening to Audible books and am currently listening to “Haversham”, yes, the great Miss Haversham of Great Expectations fame, and felt inspired by another Victorian pioneer, Jane Morris. Jane was a pre-Raphaelite muse, embroiderer extrordinare, textile designer and the wife of William Morris, and lived just outside Swindon at Kelmscott Manor in Kelmscott.
Musings of a Dragonfly is made up of a painted background, 2 additional elements, a block of text and a decorative border overlay.
 
Musings of a Dragonfly
 
 

Dancing in the Street

This playtime was about 3 different brush layers and plenty of gentle persuasion with a little boost in saturation on one layer and desatuation on another!
“Dancing in the Street” is the latest edition to the “In Paris” collection.
 
A couple dancing in the street in Paris

Three Arches

I spent a couple of enjoyable hours creating this one. It started with a base background of the main arch before adding 10 additional components. All the layers were merged and blended together to create “Three Arches”. 
 
Three Arches
 
I love how this one turned out and think I might do a couple more of these and maybe turn them into a calendar. Who knows?
 
* Elements, brushes & backgrounds courtesy of Amanda Rockwell, Art House Whimsey, Marius Els, Tangie Baxter and The Daily Texture.
Photographs were my own.

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