More information on digital magic post.

Last August, my Sweet Hubby and I went to Craggy Gardens.

I took these two photos (and if you know me, a whole lot more).

When I got home and looked at them on the computer, they seemed to suggest the butterfly was taking off.

So, I started to play.

Craggy Gardens Butterfly one 

Craggy Gardens Butterfly two 

This is the first step.

I used the computer to desaturate the drawing.

Then I opened it with Corel Painter Essentials and used a wacom tablet and pen to draw the butterfly's details back in. Once I was happy with the butterfly, I started working on the background.

I went back and forth between Corel and Photoshop Elements to get the effects I wanted. I saved variations as I worked. There is quite a bit of hand work in this set.

A Blue Ridge Mountain Road.

Craggy Gardens is located on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

The Carolinas are calling.

Cheers,

Kat

Craggy Gardens.

Come away, oh human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand

Those lines from W.B. Yeats poem, The Stolen Child,

Yeats
kept running through my head as we walked along the trail.

Craggy Gardens is truly a magical place.

Awesome in the oldest and truest sense of the word.

They are part of Smokey Mtn National Park, up on the Blue Ridge.

Time plays tricks, it is easy to see where the old stories about
entering the faery kingdom, then leaving and finding out your afternoon has lasted for years,

come from. It felt like we were only there a few minutes,

not nearly long enough.

The trail leads across a meadow.

View from the edge of the meadow.

The wind was perfectly still when I took this picture.

Dappled sunlight sneaks through the trees and all too soon, it is time to leave.

This seed head is as pretty as some flowers.

Craggy Gardens is not a formal garden,

just a natural, magical place.

Kat