Confucius

There's beauty in everything but not everyone sees it. Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in getting up every time we do. Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star. Silence is a true friend who never betrays. If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear? A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without. Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated. 

I hear, I know, I see, I remember, I do, I understand. 

Fact File:

Time: 15 minutes

Program: Photoshop CS5 Extended

Layers: 8

Notes: Kind of spur of the moment piece, done on impulse. Just a quick one to refresh my skills. Pretty happy with this one. 

Hope

Hope is the light in the darkness that leads you from despair and adds a little sparkle to your life.  She canters on, against the pelting rain, listening to the drumming of her own hooves. She follows the light, the light of her heart, where she knows she'll be safe soon. The trees overshadow her, casting gnawed and ghastly shadows across her back. Owls hoot in the distance, an occasional bat flapping subtly past. Her legs grow weak with fatigue, sweat runs into the rivers down her back. Just a bit further, she must go on. Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible. 

Always have hope.

Fact File:

Time: 3 hours

Program: Photoshop CS5 Extended

Layers: 8
Notes: Added rain and water dripping from horse.

Winter

You came like a winter snow, quiet and soft and slow, falling from the sky in the night to the Earth below. Looking out towards the distant horizon, wishing for a shooting star, she neighed and dipped her head. Pawing on the snow covered rocks, she longed for another living soul to give her warmth, to give her hope, to give her love.

She was hoping for a miracle. 

Fact File:

Time: 6 hours

Program: Photoshop CS5 Extended

Layers: 7

Notes: Lyrics from the song "Winter Snow" by Audrey Assad, made this a while ago but just thought I would put this up now.

Fog

A shadow pierced the dense fog, shying at the slightest movement in the grass. He tossed his head, whipped his tangle of a tail and snorted in disgust as a rodent scurried past his hooves. The silence was deafening. There was no wind, no sound, nothing visible in sight, nowhere to go. Surrounded by a blanket of white and random tangles of long grass, there's nowhere to escape to, nowhere safe, no sanctuary. 

Lost in a world of fog...

Fact File:

Time: 2 hours

Program: Photoshop CS5 Extended

Layers: 5

Notes: Mane and tail drawn, fog added. 

Dressage

A swerve inside the ring, a gentle gallop and a collected trot, from diagonal to diagonal, from edge to centre, a beauty in itself. The graceful movements of the forelegs and the smooth motion of the hindquarters portray a gliding motion, as if cantering on air.

Promise, precision, perfection.

Fact File:

Time: 30 minutes

Program: Photoshop CS5 Extended

Layers: 4
Notes: Just a simple piece of a rider and horse in dressage. 

Storm

The thunder echoed. In the near distance, a massive storm was brewing; streaks of lighting danced across the charcoal sky, flashing silver that outlined the shapes in the shadows. Trees bent over from the continuous gales of wind, the oceans rose majestically, anything that wasn't connected were smashed against nearby rocks. The rain pelted down on her coat ruthlessly, endlessly pulsing shivers down her body. She pushes her way through the storm, fighting the wind, bearing the cold, trudging forward step by step. 

The journey must go on...






Fact File
Time: 5 hours (on and off)
Program: Photoshop CS5 Extended
Layers: 22
Notes: Painted the ocean, lightning, clouds. Beach is composed of 4 pictures not including the rock and palm tree. Aim was to pay attention to detail.