I haven't been active in a media fandom in a long time. In recent years, my creative energy along those lines (playing with images & characters) goes to the girlettes.
Last month, however, a longtime friend started a due South (dS) slash (homoerotic) group on FB, and as a one-time fan of dS––a Candian buddy-cop show––I've been enjoying following along.
They're promoting Flower Crown Day:
for Valentine's Day weekend, fans create art or fic featuring flowers & characters and post it on Tumblr & other fan sites (Dreamwidth, AO3).
It sounded like a lark, so I decided to play.
Today was a perfect day to get lost on the Internet because it's -6ºF/-21ºC.
I asked my friend for a photo prompt to get me started, and she sent a screencap of a famous romantic moment between the characters RayK (left, Callum Keith Rennie) and Fraser (Paul Gross):
I went looking for images of men with flowers in art
history. I saw several portraits of men holding a single carnation and decided to
mash up a couple of those from the early 1500s.
Here's the photomanips I came up with.
I'm especially pleased with the fabulous red hat: Fraser is a Mountie and almost always wears his red uniform.
(Also very pleased the sightlines worked--a piece of luck. I don't have photoshop and my skills are limited.)
According to the V&A, in the 15th-16th century the carnation was a symbol of betrothal.
collections.vam.ac.uk/
Below are the original two portraits:
LEFT: Self-Portrait by Joos van Cleve, c. 1519, Antwerp, Belgium (via)
RIGHT: "Portrait of a Man in a Red Hat holding a Red Carnation", c. 1510, southern Netherlands (Wikimedia)
