To begin my project, I simply sketched my minds illustration of Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "A Dream Within a Dream", to have an idea to refer to as I create my work in Photoshop.

Next, I found a picture of a golden moon and on the horizon of the sea and layer masked it with rough waves and stormy clouds to adjust the setting and illustrate a solemn and gloomy mood. 

Removing a little bit of the clouds, I masked purple northern lights into my work... I chose purple northern lights to symbolize the frustration within the poem of the character not being able to escape his dream. 

After, I added the hopeless, isolated human sitting in the sand. His body is surrounded with golden sand, representing the temporary joy and hope while in his dream, that is soon taken away.

As I intensified the sky with more color and darkness, I surrounded the moon with golden dust and allowed the dust to follow the golden reflection all the way to the sand, and to the man. The grains of golden sand are representing past time, and they are slipping away from him, like everything else in his life.

To enhance the sky, I incorporated a lightning storm around the moon to show the loneliness and weakness within the human.

Considering this poem is about dreaming, I thought it was necessary to add an angel in the sky hovering over the gold dust to show support for the man in his dream.

Adding to the angel, two black birds were added into my work because they are spiritual animals and follow along with the duties of the angel, looking over the man.

A golden eye was added in place of the moon to represent that the golden dust coming off of it and surrounding his body, is what he is seeing in his dream.

As a final touch, a galaxy of stars were masked into the sky to symbolize the protection that is within his dream, rather than the despair outside of it.

Final product.