Somehow July became August ...

Welcome to August and our final month of winter - here's to warmer days to come :)  

This month we hope to inspire you with this amazing painting by Kirra Jamison called Over The Moon.  The background of this painting is simply astonishing and we wanted to inspire you to create one of your own so this month our CRITERIA is all about the background - use stencils, gesso, paint, ink, texture ... whatever you want to make those backgrounds a feature of your page.

A little about Kirra Jamison -

Kirra Jamison is an Australian artist born in 1982 in Sydney. Kirra grew up in Byron Bay and is currently Melbourne based. Selected solo exhibitions include, Love me two times, Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2011); Surrender Star, Firstdraft, Sydney (2010); Slow down, you move too fast, Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne (2009); Dreamweaver, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane (2009); Crying Wolf, Museum of Brisbane (2007);Pretty Faults and Petty Concerns, Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane (2006). Group shows include The Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery (2011), Recent Acquisitions, New Castle Regional Art Gallery (2008),neo goth back in black, University Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane (2008), Fresh Cut, Institute of Modern, Brisbane (2006). In 2011 Kirra received a new work grant from the Australia Council and in 2007 she was the recipient of an Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship.

http://kirrajamison.com/

And now some inspiration from the first of our team ...

LIZZY

My inspiration came from the background on this art piece. I love the black and white contrast! I've used black gesso because white pens work MUCH better on gesso than cardstock!

JO

 I've used heaps of inks/sprays, stamps, paper, stencils, whipped spackle, Structure, and lace on the background. My owl is hand drawn by me.

ELAINE

I loved the stars all over the background and chose to use this as my inspiration for my page using flowers instead.  I used ink to colour my modelling paste and after I had stencilled my flowers I left the mask on and splattered the ink on top as well.  I used washi tape in the corner to create a background for my little flower cluster.

DEB

The artwork inspired me to use an owl on my journal page in similar colours.    On the background I’ve  included doodling, stamping, paint, inks and paper.

HELENE

I used three different masks to create some extra flowers and branches on the background. I dabbed with acrylic paint and highlighted them with a black pen.

MARY

I decided to use the page from my Art Book that I was using for left over paint etc as my background. It's a crazy, messy background with leftover mist from a stencil,  paint, texture paste ,tissue paper , and even scraps of pattern paper and painted backgrounds. The little pieces of torn up tissue paper were sent to me from my pen pal, so I added that to the Chaos as well

And now it is your turn ......

Please upload the DIRECT link to your actual entry with the link tool on the LEFT by 11.55pm on August 31st, 2015.  We'd love to see your new paper, digital, mixed media or off the page entries. Why not try doing a pocket page spread?  Please no back-dated submissions.  

 You may combine our challenge with a sketch and a product/technique challenge (so two additional challenges).  Please include our inspirational picture and challenge details on your blog post as well as provide a link back to us at ARTastic  ... and don't forget to tell us how you were inspired by our challenge.  

You may enter more than once in any month as long as each submission is with a different creation.  International entries are very welcome. 

Please pop back on the 8th for The ARTastic 3T's - Tips, Tricks and Techniques brought to you this month by our  wonderfully talented team member, Deb Kupfer. 

Our July winners will also be announced at this time so please make sure you call past.