Hi there July ...

My goodness, July has rolled in.  It's mid winter and I'm feeling the cold where I live.  Good weather for crafting I always say.

This month we are celebrating the country with this delightful painting by Elioth Gruner called  Spring Frost Study.

The CRITERIA is a COUNTRY / RURAL theme

Don't overthink this one - it can be really simple.  Try doing a layout of somewhere rural you have visited or admired - it doesn't have to be remote just not a built-up area so think open space.  Have you taken the kids to the Royal Easter show and toured the rural exhibits, maybe visited a petting zoo at a local shopping centre during school holidays or fed ducks at the park.  Maybe you live in a country location and only need to step out your backdoor to find some rural vistas. 

A little about Elioth Gruner
Elioth Gruner was born in New Zealand in 1882 and arrived in Australia with his parents when he was still a baby. He began art lessons at the age of 12 and rose to become one of the most popular landscape artists of his day.  He was awarded the Wynne Prize for landscape no fewer than seven times between 1916 and 1937, including for some of his Murrumbidgee paintings.

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

LIZZY

  I went out of the box on this one & 'upcycled' an old canvas as a sort of clipboard for my scenery & flower photos from our recent UK trip.

ELAINE

For this challenge I used the rural criteria and picked up colours from my daughter's clothing. I centred the photo as the cows are in the centre of the inspiration piece, added a watercolour background, and used a journaling card as part of my embellishments.

MARIA

I was inspired by farm animals from the painting. I found a photo of my son seeing a goat the first time in his life! I named it "The First Encounter". The photo is accompanied by a paper with a botanic theme and a journaling on a tag.

TRACEY

 Photo supplied by a scrapping sister of her husband and son on their cotton farm. Love this photo.

SUE

Our early morning rural view taken from our deck on the last day of Autumn.

KAT

 I was inspired by the farm setting, animals, fences and colours.

ANNA

Our sweet pretty newborn calves. Happy times and the real life at the country. My paper choices also are inspired of the country side.

Over to you ......

Please upload the DIRECT link to your actual entry with the link tool on the LEFT by 11.55pm on July 31st, 2016.  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.  

 Please note:- You may combine our challenge with a sketch challenge only - no other combining will be accepted.  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 call past on the 8th for our announcement of the June winners and our ARTastic 3T's - Tips, Tricks and Techniques for July.