Hey O-2,
Thanks for the compliment, I really appreciate it. What I want the viewers to come away with is a feeling of the passing on of knowledge from an elder to a young man coming of age. In this image, the younger of the two has learned of his arcane heritage for the first time. The elder Druid is instructing the acolyte in the arcane ways of this new and unknown art. This, the lesson of fire, was what came into my mind. Since fire has always held a tremendous amount of fear and respect in our society, I decided to use it as the vehicle of that lesson. Also, since fire was the catalyst that propelled man from wandering nomads to gathering societies I felt that this would be a great way to describe the transition from that of mortal man to magik user.
I hope that helps a little. As I said, this is my first attempt at such a prestigeous competition. I hope to do well, but am just happy to be a part of it.
dyoung