Welcome to February 2015 ...

We have been bowled over by the wonderful, beautiful and inspirational entries from last month - thank you one and all - you have made our month.

We hope you like the inspiration piece we have for you in February, I am sure you will ;)

Introducing Muggles by Josh Miels and yes you guessed it, the challenge this month is a colour one.

A little about Josh Miels ...

Joshua Miels is a contemporary portrait artist who looks to capture the vulnerability of people and the emotions that people try to hind from others. Spending countless hours adding layer upon layer of paint Joshua produces artworks that are not only striking but deep and powerful. Painted with predominantly oil paint, each piece start off with a subject, but with a large amount of experimentation, each art piece has its own journey on how its get from start to finish. The Artworks challenges viewers to draw upon there own emotions and personal experiences. How each piece is interpreted differs from person to person, there is no right or wrong way to interprets these artworks.

http://joshuamiels.com/

This year we will have two main prize packs, one from Mystical Scrapbooks and the other from Flourish with a Bling - these winners will be selected by Creative Team vote and by myself.  Each month we will also have another prize pack donated by one of our team where the winner is selected purely by random draw - so anyone could be a winner, no matter your style or your level of experience.  All these prizes will be available to anyone, no matter your country of residence.

And now some wonderful layouts from some of our talented team ....

LIZZY

For my LO I used the colours in the palette - but made them stronger, more in keeping with my masculine page. And you can see my photo is reflective, a lot like the girl in the inspiration piece!

JO

The colours reminded me of a recent sunset on our beach holiday. I think this is the first time I've ever incorporated pink into a masculine page, but I think I got away with it.

HELENE

The perfect pastel palette ...

DEB

Along with following the colour palette,  I was inspired by the beauty and softness I saw in the artwork.  Using a wash for the background colours, I tried to create this softness. 

MARY

I was influenced by the big flowers and the swirls in the ladies face. I have used texture paste to create swirls and added glitz and glitter. I also felt the painting is quite dramatic, which I tried to reflect in the layout. I was influenced by the colours which I felt were dramatic as well.

ELAINE

A tribute page using the colours palette beautifully ...

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 February 28th, 2015.  We'd love to see your new paper, digital, mixed media or off the page entries.  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 super talented and mega creative team member, Lizzy Hill. 

Our January winners will also be announced at this time and believe me, it is going to be incredibly difficult to select our winners - thank goodness for random draw :)