Rising above...the mythical Phoenix has always fascinated and inspired me. This image was composited from a rock wall portion (background), mushrooms on a tree (the flames), and a lily (all elements of the Phoenix).
Background is a composite of a stucco wall and stained glass window, water lily was extracted from aonother image and the bamboo was extracted from a photo of real bamboo, then filtered for a painted texture effect.
The elements in this image are all from the same original photo (which can be found in the flowers gallery - can you figure out which one?). A single flower was replicated and stylized. A section of the greenery was stylized, duplicated to create the background.