Spa Days, digital art by Lucy Arnold

Spa Days

Ahhhh…There’s nothing like a dragon-heated pool for a day of rest and relaxation! In this surreal fantasy, two stone figures enjoy spa days while surrounded by the beauty of sunset-lit mountains, waterfalls, geysers and turquoise blue steaming pools. I imagine that the dragon enjoys his job.

“Spa Days” was created from a great many bits and pieces of photos I took. Photoshop was my art studio. Nothing is quite what it was in the original photo, and even the sky and mountains are made of several images blended together. In every case, I isolated specific parts of photos (including individual leaves) from their backgrounds before bringing them into my image. Every element was also altered in various ways, including size, orientation, color and transparency. In some cases, several copies of a single image are layered together, each with a different blending mode and level of transparency in order to achieve the effects I wanted. Then I tweaked and played with each element, and the overall image, until it felt and looked right. This can take forever.

For those interested in where the original photos were taken, read the full description on the Surreal Gallery page for Spa Days.