'With this work and the next, 'Trees of Life', my main goals were to maintain more of the photographic elements than in my previous works, to somewhat limit the colors, and to make the foreground much sharper than the background. For both works, I used several different nature photographs to accomplish the composition. The Jays are residents in my yard and photographed from an upstairs window. They truly are standing guard against predators (in this case my cat lilly) , although both were photographed separately.The trees seen in 'Sentinels' are from a forest near Eugene, Oregon where the trees have lichen hanging off of them. The fourth photograph used in 'Sentinels' is actually of wetlands (and reflections) from the Cosumnes River Preserve south of Sacramento.