The first of the series, Back when I thought each would be a simple take on the terminology suggested. I found an owl image and created the hues and textures that would highlight its striking silhouette and obscure some of the feather/facial features.

I took the orange palette I created and used the liquify feature to create the ribbons that surround the owl. A layer of paper texture was also distorted to simulate moving branches in a tree. Once the elements were combined, a series of tweaks to opacity settings create the colorful pinks, gold and orange that create the owl. The animated version is mainly a rotating layer on top of the blended elements, but I liked the effect of the shapes passing over the silhouette. I couldn’t decide if it was more like feathers, branches or just moonlight.