A cold and barren landscape doesn't have to be grim. I did a phoenix-like abstract work before, so I thought an ice phoenix would be an interesting variation. Created in Vue, with the streaming effect done in Paint Shop Pro. The texture on the phoenix is from the background of Waltz of the Snowflakes.

This picture developed like many of my abstracts, with a fractal design that I played with and manipulated until it didn't bear much resemblence to the original. It this case it was an orange and lavendar pattern that looked rather like a phoenix's wing.