I know I’m slightly late with this post, after all the image was created 3 weeks ago, but as you can see my blogs have been going out pretty regularly! Which is just one of the fruits of the batch-creation I did a few months ago.
From now until the New Year I hope to release a blog post every Friday. I have pre-planned the bulk of them (for instance this blog post was written on the day I created “Horrible Imaginings” but today was the next available date I could post it!). I still have 5 free dates in 2019 that I will hopefully dedicate to features like this one about new/recent work I’ve created.
Today’s blog is all about “Horrible Imaginings.”
© Abigail Larson
This image was inspired by the work of illustrator Abigail Larson. I love her illustrations, the mystical qualities and the drawing style, they remind me of the work I do, but only in illustrated form. I’m not usually one for re-imagining someone else’s work. I like to take inspiration from other artists, but this image was too good to pass up, on the other hand if someone did an illustration based on my art I would be thrilled!
One of my favourite parts of “Horrible Imaginings” is the fact that I photographed everything in the image such as the model (me), the candles and even the wall (with a little help from Brooke Shaden’s textures).
I still had a few candles left over from my previous image “At the Candle’s End” so I melted them down to use in this image. It appears I’m developing quite the fascination with candles. I love the fact that they constantly change and evolve as they melt down, the lines of dripping wax are so interesting and almost archaic in appearance. It’s a shame candles aren’t really seen much these days, they have such a mysterious, timeless quality that’s very appealing.
To achieve the illusion that the candles are levitating I put the candles and skewers and stuck them through boxes, photographing them in the same light as myself. I only had four candles so in order to make each look unique I rotated them and melted them more.
Before any editing takes place
I loved using the sheer fabric for my “The Blessed Dark” series and thought the addition of that would add another interesting dimension to the piece. I love when there’s a pop of red in an image.
It was a relatively quick edit once I began, taking about 2 and a half hours to complete. Usually my images take anywhere upwards of 10 hours to complete. This is probably down to the fact I created all the images myself. I didn’t have to do too much in terms of lighting because everything was taken in the same light/location. If you’re interested in some tips on how to create your own stock imagery keep an eye out for my blog post next month on the subject!
I have a few exciting posts coming up in the future. Find it hard to stay inspired? You might want to check back this time next week as I’ll be giving you a run down and some of my favourite ways to stay inspired!
