First Night Design | Happy Accidents or Tennyson’s Manor

A couple of mornings ago I woke up with a scene in my mind’s eye and knew it was something I wanted to create.  I saw desert, night sky and camels.  I set to work last night.

Kerstin Frank & The Graphics Fairy

But I did not discover Kerstin‘s textures above till this morning and was convinced I could do something with two I already had.

So what happened, Sarah?

A happy accident. I put together two textures from Kerstin Frank that I had previously downloaded and experimented with blending.  It needed more work to create even half the background I had envisaged but I decided to add the camel from The Graphics Fairy and take it from there.  Yet I could not find the camel.  I knew it was on my computer but it was already past midnight and I didn’t have the energy to search properly nor visit The Graphics Fairy to download it again.

What happened next, Sarah?

During the search for the camel, I came across a charming vintage postcard depicting the home of Alfred Lord Tennyson – Aldworth House in Haslemere, Surrey. Let’s try that, I thought, and save it for another artwork.

Aldworth House

The postcard has a facsimile of Tennyson’s signature on the right and the first stanza of In Memoriam on the left:

I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

No sooner had I plonked the postcard on top of the Frank textures than I knew the piece was transformed.  and once I had made certain changes and experimented with different Photoshop states, it became clear that camels under the night sky would have to wait.

Tennyson’s Manor @ First Night Design

So there you have it.

Take care and keep laughing!