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© Sybille Sterk

Do not copy or publish this in any way, shape or form without my written permission.

A new poem and a picture to go with it. All my own photographs plus free and bought resources. 

You can read the poem here.

On Society6:

On Redbubble:

Hear My Heart Break

© Sybille Sterk

Do not copy or publish this in any way, shape or form without my written permission.

Illustration of my poem of the same name. Font is Amatic, as always. The lizard was a tiny common lizard in my garden. The petals are from a peony.

Read the poem here.

All images/textures/brushes my own or bought. Edited with Photoshop.

On Society6:

Rapunzel

MCN: CJHT2-F3QA5-MWL7U

This is another shot from my first photo shoot. It's my favourite because of the amount of emotion that comes through. I always liked Rapunzel; children always seem to pay for their parents' mistakes and in that way the tale is quite realistic. Depending on the version of the tale you read Rapunzel does quite a lot to free herself, other than most of the other princesses, which only seem to hang around, often asleep or otherwise incapacitated, waiting to be rescued. ;-) I am still waiting for a gung-ho princess, although, saying that Fhiona from Shrek was a good start....

Part of my new series of images for licensing on Arcangel-Images - use this code: SYST-0186

Created with my own photographs in Photoshop, no stock used.

Dragon's Eye - Experiment - Variations

This was an experiment.

MCN:CGGW3-V768U-Q3ENP

I painted the original in Corel Painter and then used it as a base for 'Altered Art' by adding textures and photographs to make a new altered image.

I wanted to try out the different effects of different textures on the image and see what variations I could achieve using this technique. I overlayed the image with textures and added photos but barely changed the original, in some cases not at all.

The idea for the orginal was to make it suitable for manipulation as I wanted to integrate the techniques used in photo manipulation in my digital paintings to create a new style. I've always been using the patterns and papers in Corel Painter, but this is going a step further by integrating textures and photographs.

Woods Dragon

MCN: CAVAR-BLVND-21LMP

She was completely lost in the woods. There was no sign of habitation and no sense of the woods ending. She struggled through leaf mulch, over roots, snagging her dress on bramble and snapping twigs. Eventually, when it began to get dark she saw an orange light shimmering through the trees. With nowhere else to go, this seemed as good a direction to head towards than any. She parted the branches in front of her and looked a huge glowing eye. Her heart took a double beat and she tried to retreat back, away from the huge beast....

Credits:

• Texture 41 - Sirius SDZ
• Candle Smoke - wasd
• Grunge Textures 04 - Goodtextures

The leaves surrounding the dragon's eye are all photographs I took with the intention of using them to frame my illustrations. All other textures used in the image are mine, too.

Tapestry Dragon 

MCN: C5LJU-USVJY-9HTGT

She had followed the instruction in the book to the letter, followed one landmark after the other until it lead her here to this dirty window in a part of town she had never been before. She wouldn’t have believed that there was any part of the town that she did not know, hadn’t been before, but the book had lead her here. She decided to follow the rest of the instructions. Standing in front of the window, she rubbed the glass, the looked through. Right behind the window was a tapestry wall, framed by tatty velvet red curtains. She spoke the spell under her breath. A huge eye opened in the tapestry wall. The oracle had awoken…

Credits:

• Dirty Glass - Enframed
• Concrete Bunker - Goodtextures
• Paper Texture - Night-Fate-Stock
• Texture 28 - Night-Fate-Stock
• Backblech 01 - Sundel
• Curtain 03 - LunaNYXstock
• Art Nouveau Pattern Texture - Enchantedgal-Stock

Stone Dragon

 MCN: CXVTY-UGKNP-VFEKE

He had lost his way amongst the tall oaks long ago, when he came across a crumbling wall. Behind it loomed a huge structure, partly overgrown with moss, grasses and wildflowers. He decided to climb the wall. Laboriously he looked for handholds amongst the crevices between the stones. Finally, he reached the top of the wall and looked across it. At first he couldn't make out what he was looking at, then he realised it was a huge reptilian eye. It blinked....

Credits:

• Texture 145 - Sirius SDZ
• Texture 117 - Sirius SDZ
• Paperstock 13 - HateStock
• Bryn Metal Decay 17 - Enframed

All other textures and photos are my own:

The ivy is one of my photos I took at Sawston Hall and the stone wall at the front is part of a wall in the Colosseum in Rome.
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Please let me know which variation (or the original) you like best:

 

  

  

If you'd like to know how I created these variations, check out my journal entry on Redbubble.

Heart of Stone - Altered Art

Altered Art to accompany my poem Heart of Stone.

This one took forever to get right...

I used my own photos/textures together with the following,

Stock:

• Some old Rock by Neb8stock
  

• Bone Hands by XaXushqa
  

• Moon by FantasyStock
  

Textures:

• Sirius_SDZ
  

• Enframed
  

• Khaosdog
  

The butterflies are Zebra Longwings and have been (digitally) hand painted in Corel Painter.

The heart is a shape from the Photoshop custom shapes combined with the 'some old rock' stock and blended in Painter, with texture added in Photoshop.

Sugar Plums, Fleur-de-Lys and Wall Flowers

Here are two versions of the pattern I worked till 2.30 last night to get finished. I can't decide which version I like better - the one with leaves or the one without.

Sugar Plums


I saw a vintage Japanese mould of a sugar plum design and really, really liked it so this pattern was created with the lovely mould design in mind. :-) It's going to be part of my oriental pattern collection.

Here are a couple more Gothic patterns:

Fleur-De-Lys


Wall Flowers

This was actually inspired by a visit to a local church. Since I'd already done the gargoyles (although I might come back to that) I decided to do something along the lines of the stone mouldings.



Again, I couldn't decide which design I like better - the first one is the original, the second one has been coloured to look like aged sandstone.


More to come in the next days including four pairs of earrings. :-)