{The Lady and the Unicorn} ~ Personal Inspiration

I do a lot of personal inspiration sessions throughout the year.  I think that shooting for myself is very important.  It keeps my passion alive and it is also great practice for me, especially since I take on a limited number of commissioned sessions a year.

I have so many ideas and a binder full of notes that needs to be expressed.  I came up with the idea one day at my regular 9-5 job.  If you know me, you know that I am in love with the Medieval and Renaissance time periods.  One of my favorite works of art from time period are The Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries.  The tapestries were created in the mid to late 15th century.  There are six total tapestries that depict the five senses; taste, touch, sight, hearing, and smell.  The final tapestry depicts desire.  In each of the tapestries there is a noble woman with a unicorn on one side and a lion on the other.
 

The Lady and The Unicorn Tapestries.  The five senses from top left to bottom right: hearing, taste, sight, smell, touch, and desire.

I wasn't sure how I was going to pull this idea off, especially since at the time I had yet to do composite work.  I knew that I wanted the unicorn to be as realistic as possible and I also knew that I wanted to omit the lion.  The first task was to get the costume.  I knew I wanted the Lady to be very simple.  The tapestries are very ornate and the noblewoman is wearing various elaborate dresses in each of the tapestries.  Obviously my budget did not allow such extravagance.  So I started on Etsy.  That is where I found Well Dressed Lady.  The overdress and chemise were perfect and I had them custom made for my little girl.   The headpiece was created by my mother who is a master with flowers.

The next task was finding lifelike unicorn stock art.  I came across several digital renditions but they just didn't fit the task.  They looked too fake.  So I started the search for white horses that I could manipulate into unicorns.  I ended up obtaining all of my horse stock art from Colourize Stock on Deviantart.

After nine months of preparation the session was photographed in the beginning of September at Prophecy Creek Park.  Below is my rendition of The Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries.  I hope you enjoy the images as much as I enjoyed creating them.

For more information on the tapestries and detailed images:  The Lady and the Unicorn. 

Dress: Well Dressed Lady (Facebook) and (Etsy)
Stock Art: Colourize, Zuzu136 (Deviantart)