"Flower & Sword"

This is my collaboration with @Everlove's current Collaborative Art Journey photo:

With this journey, I really wasn't sure where I was going to end up.  I decided to just let things happen.  Here's what I did:

I started with her original photo titled "Depths of Eternity":

I decided I really liked the area on the left hand side of the photo that look like steps, so I isolated that area and mirrored it. I ended up with this:

This already looked super interesting to me.  I decided to incorporate some of my own artwork, as I often do with these collaborations.  For this one, I added in my painting called "Forget-Me-Nots".  This is one of my earlier paintings I did several years ago when I first started doing my own paintings, after I moved to Oregon. It was created using mostly watercolor, but I DID use some white acrylic under some of the flowers.  I sell this image on greeting cards.  It reminds me of my grandmother - not because she had forget-me-nots growing in her yard (she didn't).  But, because my sister & I gave out forget-me-not seeds in cute little pots to people at my grandmother's memorial after she passed away, and because I really don't want to forget her.  The name says it all.  

I layered this painting with some of the parts of the photo.  I added some white shining down from the top that ended up morphing into a sword of sorts.  

This combination of the forget-me-nots and the sword/dagger sort of spoke to me (not really - you know what I mean) They seem to represent the contrast and concept of delicate fragile beauty combined with strong feminine energy (sword).  Carefully piercing the beauty with truth and strength.  Showing that strength can be beautiful, and can exist alongside tenderness.  Lots of interesting thoughts like that have come to mind while I was working on this.  Perhaps you will find some different meanings/symbology in it.  Let me know if you do.

Thanks to @Everlove who just keeps hosting these awesome collaborations!!  What would we do without her, and her constant stream of inspiration?