marriage of Titania; Salmon berry floral duet

One day when I was baking some bread I got distracted and did not hear the timer while the dough was rising. The dough ended up over rising and glopped all over the floor of the oven. As I was surveying the mess, thinking it really needed a good scrub down anyway, I noticed the interesting patterns and textures on the oven door window. I had just started learning about adding textures to photos and was keen to make some of my own, so before I whipped out the baking soda and scrub brush (a great non-toxic eco-friendly non smelly way to clean the oven btw) I got out my camera and took lots of pictures of various sections of the window. The back-light shining through the transparent surface created some interesting effects, and I thought the drips and splashes would make a great rainy/rainforest type background texture.

I was so excited about how they turned out that I started tinkering, after I was supposed to be in bed, adding them to some salmon berry flower photos I’d taken earlier that week. Before I knew it I looked up at the clock and it was three hours later. I won’t show the close up shots of my oven here, but layers of various shapes in the texture created a lovely background. As I started moving things around I started developing a concept of this being about a marriage relationship. Then, after I found and strategically placed an abstract face, things started taking a more Shakespearean turn…

Each time I look at this I find something new. It is a bit like a game of hidden pictures, or looking up at the clouds and trying to find different things in the shapes 🙂

marriage of Titania; Salmon berry floral duet by Dawna Morton ~see it framed

At first glance, this is just a nice picture of some flowers with an interesting textured background, framed with a bit of modern art flair; however, there is more to it than meets the eye when examined in more depth…
Half hidden behind the five petaled purple Pacific Northwest salmon berry blossom, the face of Titania as a bride glows with love as she gazes adoringly up at the visage of Oberon. The overlapping purple, green, and golden toned rectangles symbolize both unity and discord in the couple’s future as the begin with varying success to mesh and meld their lives and hearts together from separate planes of existence, as well as symbolizing the various interlinked plots within Shakespeare’s play, “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” abstract shapes and textures in the brushed gold tones of the background further call to mind characters and whet the imagination with scenes and ideas from the play, foreshadowing the events f their future life.
Nick Bottom appears to sing or bray like a donkey below one petal, while the faint shapes of a donkey of horse head are formed in the upper right. On the left Helena, in a floral hat, wakes the sleeping Lysander. Another figure along the top appears to write in a book, representing the playwright at work while other shadowy figures emerge among the golden raindrops which splash a sense of magic and wonder across the dreamy scene. As the drops of water land on the blossoms the stretch forth their petals towards each other with love and yearning, reminding us of the flowers used to make the love potion which caused so much turmoil in the lives of the characters, even though they found happiness in the end.

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marriage of Titania; Salmon berry floral dueton RedBubble: cards starting at US $1.92,

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Some people I have shown this to, have seen the images in the background right away, while others just don’t get it, so I thought I’d include this little slide show with a general outline of the shapes I see. This is not an exact outline, since the images are supposed to be abstract, ethereal–half there, half imagined. Hopefully you will enjoy finding these (and maybe even more) as much I do…

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Images and content on this blog are the intellectual property of Dawna Morton.

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