When I first looked at Shaka's picture this week (installment #33 of the #LMAC contest) angels came to mind.
Shaka's Picture
The metal structure in front of the church suggested angel wings. Part of this metal structure became wings on my horn-playing seraphim.
Traditionally, seraphim celebrate with music. Thus they are celebrating with music in my collage.
Church Window Depicting Seraphim with Music Scrolls
This image is credited to Jules and Jenny from Lincoln, UK. The image is used under a CC 2.0 license.
Typically, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, seraphim celebrate God. In my picture they are celebrating the arrival of the unicorn. Conveniently (for my purposes) unicorns have been used symbolically at times to represent Christ, and Christ's Resurrection.
Seraphim in Judeo-Christian Tradition
The seraphim in my picture are not accurate representations of the Judeo-Christian image. To get an idea of exactly how these celestial beings have been conceptualized in this tradition, I referred to several sources. Here I will cite, first of all, the Encyclopedia Britannica. According to Britannica, seraphim are mentioned in Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious texts.
The seraphim represented often have several sets of wings. In Greek Orthodox tradition they sing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory”. Britannica, and other sources, characterize seraphim as the highest order of angels. These beings usually are associated with the color red, and are often called "The Burning Ones".
The Unicorn
There's a great site, crystalinks.com, that offers a list of 'reported' unicorn sightings through history. These 'sightings' date back to "The beginning of Time"--to Adam and Eve in Paradise(!). Some other reported 'sightings':
*The Emperor Fu Hsi in China 5,000 years ago
*Ctesiasm, in India, 4th century B.C
*Alexander the Great, in Asia, 3rd century B.C.
Landscape of Paradise and the Loading of the Animals in Noah’s Ark, by Brueghel the Elder, 1596
Note the unicorns in the background. The picture is in the public domain.
As for the role of unicorns (as specifically depicted in the Judeo-Christian tradition):
According to Lightworkers, a site that seems to be dedicated to religious themes, "the unicorn represents Jesus, who offers His life as a sacrifice to protect the vulnerable ". Another site dealing with religious themes, Preachingsymbols.com, states, "The unicorn is ... considered an allegory for the life of Christ".
Finally, in a book entitled, The Rutledge Companion to Medieval Iconography, it is stated that, "The unicorn was an allegory for Christ's life and resurrection."
I have to admit: I didn't know about the unicorn's role in religious iconography when I chose to place this mythical figure at the center of my collage. Unicorns just seemed to be lovely, uplifting symbols.
Creating the Collage
As is always true for me in collage creation, I went through innumerable missteps.
Here are some of them:
Shown below is an early step, where I assembled different parts that were to go into the collage. This is where I tried to figure out relative sizes and perspectives. The picture of the heavens was a "free photo" on Pixabay. The angels were also a collection of free images from Pixabay.
One of the first things I did was clip the wings of the horn-blowing angel and attach wings from the metal structure in front of the church (this was hard to do!). I could have kept the angel's original wings, but wanted to use as much of 
Then I proceeded to cut, paste and blend until the picture started to come together. One intermediate step:
Getting the clouds to convincingly surround the church was a major challenge.
The unicorn came from Paint 3D, as did the stars, piano, jumping angels, and harp. Lighting effects, additional clouds and other refinements were achieved by using GIMP.
I think you can see that for me this is a rather choppy process. However, every step is enjoyable. With my poor skill set, I learn to solve problems. That's always fun.
Thank you
If you have imagination and an appetite for wonder, you'll love the post.
A Section of the CERN Large Hadron Collider
Image credit: Maximilian Brice. Used under a CC 4.0 license
Thank you for reading my blog
Hive on!
