Arbor Animus

Please excuse the terrible Latin title :)

This was a piece largely inspired by something I saw in a dream. In the dream I was in a wide clearing with a lone tree in the middle of a forest with the sky full of dark clouds. In one spot in the sky, the clouds parted and let a full moon shine through. When the moonlight lit the clearing, a bright, strange double halo of light surrounded the tree. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen; a moment that was profoundly rare and sacred to witness, though I had no idea what it meant.

I've spent several days trying to recreate the scene in my head. Of course, the thing about that sort of dream is that no rendering one can create could hope compare to the visions in the dream.

I vaugely remembered there being mythical creatures present, but I don't remember which creatures specifically. Nor do I remember what relation they had to the tree in the dream. I included a unicorn and a phoenix, though tried to keep them sort of "ethereal" looking, as if the tree is some sort of ancient, magical portal connecting our own world to the universe from which these supernatural creatures originated and they are just emerging from said portal.

I feel like this particular piece may be at least partly representative of the part of my mind which houses my creativity and my drive for creating fantasy artwork.