Photographer creates amazing fairytale inspired images using 1000 fresh flowers, set in enchanting woodland as part of touching tribute series to her late mother

Kirtsy Mitchell, 36, started Wonderland series almost five years ago in memory of her mother, who died in 2008

Latest addition to project features enchanted forest portrait of model wearing 1,000 fresh purple flowers




Many women will remember being read fantastical tales set in enchanting woodlands, with magic fairy queens and princesses as young girls - stories that had the ability to transport them to faraway lands if just for a few precious moments.

One woman, who has treasured such stories is photographer Kirsty Mitchell from Surrey. She has gone on to create a truly amazing photo series constructed from her memories of the tales she was read as a child by her late mother.

She has used 1,000 fresh flowers to mark the next stage of the final chapter in her Wonderland project - a fantastical picture series dedicated to her late mother Maureen, an English teacher who spent her life inspiring generations of children with imaginative stories and plays.

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The Last Dance Of The Flowers marks the next stage in the final chapter of Kirsty's Wonderland project

Following Maureen's death from a brain tumour in 2008, Kirsty, 36, put her grief into her passion for photography.

The photographic series began as a small summer project but grew into an inspirational creative journey. Now just four photos away from completing the whole series of 78 images, Kirsty has pulled out all the stops



'This escapism grew into the concept of creating an unexplained storybook without words, dedicated to her [my mother], that would echo the fragments of the fairytales she read to me constantly as a child,' says the artist, who was named the first female Nikon UK Ambassador for Fine Art Photography in July.

The latest addition to her series is called The Last Dance of the Flowers and shows a model clothed almost entirely in 1,000 purple flowers. She wears a voluminous coat adorned with silk applique blooms, with a trail of 1,000 purple flowers flowing from the bottom.



With no digital photo manipulation used, it's Kirsty's talent and b ackground in fashion and costume design which shines through in the image. Set in an enchanted forest setting, the ethereal model almost blends into, or emerges form, the flora and fauna which surrounds her.



Kirsty (not pictured) created the gravity-defying wig herself through several attempts - eventually wiring parts of it to trees above the model's head

'A lot of people are writing [I've used] "No Photoshop" on the picture,' Kirsty tells MailOnline, 'which is completely true in the sense everything is real, true scale and colour.



'But the picture was retouched in Photoshop to clean up the model's skin etc. - just the normal level that everyone does on digital pictures.'

She says the series should be finished in early July, 'sequencing Katie's journey home'. Katie, the model used throughout the series, helps bring to life Kirsty's metaphors about her late mother.

'I made the costume and wig myself by hand using silk flowers,' says Kirsty.

Kirsty made the costume herself by hand using a coat and hundreds of silk flowers

Just four photos away from completing the whole series of 78 images, Kirsty has pulled out all the stops

'The coat and wig took about three months to make on and off. The picture is from the final sequence of Katie leaving Wonderland (there are now four more pictures to go until the end), which is all explained in more detail on my blog.

'The colours are so beautiful all lined up next to each other and it works so well as a set. The next picture will be a huge magic door in the woods that she leaves Wonderland though, it was so much work but looks amazing!'

The painstaking shot involved a team picking more than 1,000 purple flowers fresh from the forest for more than four hours, and then spending a few more building the set.



Time was tight as everything had to be set up perfectly for exactly 6.30pm when the sun would create the most ideal light.

Elbie Van Eeden touches up the model's makeup (l) and a team assemble the model, wig and costume (r)



Various ladders, sprays and smoke machines were used to create the illusion of a fairy tale-esque vision in the woods

She writes of the process on her website: 'Throughout the series I have always used trails in my work to demonstrate journey and movement through a static image... Here I hoped to take that one step further by making the flowers physically lift Katie's form, raising her up in a surge of colour that would carry her through the forest to the hidden place that has waited so patiently for her arrival.



'At night I dreamt of the flowers coming to life in this last maternal gesture of protection. Inside my own body I could feel my spirits rise with her, a sense of completion on the horizon for both of us, as Katie's journey parallels mine in the real world.



'I am so close now, just 4 pictures away from the end of the series. In the mornings I can feel a change in me, I walk to the studio in a different way, I look up again, I feel lighter, I breathe slower... I whisper to myself with each step 'almost there.... almost there.... almost there....'



She told MailOnline that her Wonderland series is entirely self funded, with a purpose to create a extraordinary storybook without words.

A beautiful closeup of Katie's face, with wide black irises 9l) and the wig arranged with blooms in all its stunning glory (r)



Behind-the-scenes snapshot shows the painstaking process behind creating a mindblowing image 'The characters are all my own creation; the costumes props and sets. I construct them like mini film sets in the woodlands around my home. Everything is real and real scale, and can take months to make,' she said.

'The characters are not based on anything that already exists - they are the result of my faded memories of the stories my mother read to me as a child, the original book illustrations, poems, paintings mixed up with dreams. I wanted to create pictures that people will project their own ideas on to, and lose themselves in.

'The project currently has 74 pictures in the collection, with another four coming. All the new pictures, the last ten, have been made and shot over the last nine months, and we are now retuning with them, as well as the films. Each picture has a five-minute behind the scenes film made by FX Media.

When it came to the selection process, Kirsty says she firmly believes in trying to keep every single image in the collection unique

When she first looked at the shots from this shoot, Kirsty was really torn about which picture was her favourite

'But we are also working on a full-length documentary about the whole series which will be released online at the very close of the series. I hope to complete everything by March next year.

Previously the artist created phenomenal portrait of an interpretation of the Greek personification version of Mother Earth, Gaia, creator and giver of birth to the Earth and all the Universe; the heavenly gods, the Titans and the Giants, entitled Gaia, The Birth Of An End.

'I was heavily influenced by Inca gods, and my trip to Tibet in 2012, during which I had specifically collected traditional bells and tribal necklaces.



'I began by building up an entire new lower level to the piece, that would help surround the face and balance the enormous proportions of the top section.

'The headdress was entirely hand painted, dyed and beaded by myself and weighs so much, that it had to be wired to a wooden beam in my studio to take the weight off the model's head,' she says.

The base is made from solid plaster with metal mesh embedded into it for extra strength.

A phenomenal portrait of an the Greek goddess Gaia marks the beginning of the final chapter in Kirsty Mitchell's Wonderland

'I named this first portrait Gaia, The Birth of An End, as it about the last seen character Gaia's transition from a mortal to her true goddess form.



'I named her after the Greek equivalent of our Mother Earth, and this picture represents her incarnation, (birth) surrounded by an explosion of vibrating, shimmering energy. Her character affects everything. As she changes so to will the landscape, creating a butterfly effect that sets in motion the end of the story.



'It was heavily influenced by how I see the human spirit; after losing my mother people often ask me what I imagine comes afterwards, and my only answer is my belief in an endless energy, the circle I feel we are all a part of. My mother is with me always, she is the earth, the rain, the wind in my hair was I walk to work. The body may cease, but I feel the vibrations of people continue, like ripples from a stone cast in a lake, and it was this power of spirit that I have tried to express within the picture.'

More of Kirsty's previous portraits from the Wonderland series are listed below.

Kirsty Mitchell has dedicated her Wonderland photographic series to the memory of her late mother, Maureen, who lost her life to a brain tumour in 2008

Danaus: A close-up of a model before a sunlit backdrop, peering through a veil of paper butterflies



While Nightingales Wept: a model captured running though the woods near Kirsty's home in Surrey



A Floral Birth: Kirsty imagines a creature begotten from nature

Lady of The Lake: A model emerges from a pool of lilies deep within the forest

Far, Far Away: A twenties-style circus performer swings from a giant tree

Gammelyn's Daughter: The model clutches a ship to her chest atop a heathery cushion

The White Queen ruling over the forest of Wonderland and The Fall of Gammelyn, a decaying forest king



The Storyteller: A reference to Kirsten's English teacher mother, a model sits elegantly on a carpet of bluebells enveloped by books

The Queen's Armada: A fantasy queen sails a fleet of the most delicate paper ships



The Beautiful Blindness of Devotion sees a painted girl with eyes closed in prayer while The Briar Rose is a human rambling rose appearing to grow from the stonework



The Faraway Tree: ethereal ships, magically lit, appear to sprout from this tree as if commanded by the queen

Dryad: A nymph clings to giant tree roots suspended over the river



Euphaeidae: A winged fairy princess amid a sea of lavender



Spirited Away: Blooms stand out against a snowy forest backdrop - a promise of the spring to come

