Welcome July ...

And suddenly it was July and we now have 25 weeks until Christmas - now there's a depressing thought!

This month our inspiration comes to you from Robert Klippel with a piece called Abstract.  Our criteria this month is a very simple one - use pen on your page in some manner - easy right?

CRITERIA - Use PEN on your work

A little about Robert Klippel (1920 - 2001)

Klippel spent much of this early life around Sydney harbour, which led to a love for building model ships. In 1939 he joined the Royal Australian Navy and then became the aircraft model maker for the Gunnery School, Woolloomooloo.

At age 24, Klippel turned his full attention to developing his art practice. The next few years would see him move in and out of various art courses and colleges in Sydney and London and cross Europe.  He returned to Australian in 1950 working in various jobs while working primarily on his sculpture. Klippel constructed the first of his metal sculptures in 1953. This departure from more familiar materials such as wood was an important development for his work.  He spend much of the late 1950's and 60' in the US. His time in America was fruitful; he had branched out into 'junk' sculpture, then a relatively new and unknown form in sculpture. By the time he returned to Australia in mid-1960, Klippel was considered Australia's foremost sculptor. For the first time his works were received in his home country with praise and sales. For the remainder of his life Klippel lived and worked in Sydney where he exhibited his works. The last few decades saw his work fluctuate between materials and techniques, but never far from his favoured 20th century modernism practices.

This year we are putting the ART back into ARTastic and our main prize each month will reflect that - this month featuring  fantastic products from Tim Holtz.

And as always a lovely prize pack for our random draw winner ...

Donated by Karen McLaughlin

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

HELENE

The pattern in the painting made me think of squares and I used a black pen to draw a grid pattern as a background.

ANNA

 I was inspired by the colors and of course the use of pen . I wrote lines around some of my paper squares and I wrote the journaling with a pen. And the photo is a documentary of how my sweet daughter used some color pens on her hands to cheer on our bandy- team when they played the final of the Swedish Championships this past winter.

MARIA

I used the pen for circles and doodling. Arrows are stamps and drawings. And I was inspired by the chaos in the picture .

ELAINE

I have used pen to create my background of stripes. I then added watercolour picking up the orange in the painting. I used more of the colours in the papers.

TRACEY

I used a template and some distress inks. Used a black pen around all the shapes to create a stained glass effect.

TANYA

I loved the green and brown colours in the abstract picture, The curved lines were a focal point too which is why I decided to draw circles on my layout.

JUDY

I was inspired by the pastel shades in the artwork and by the repetitive nature of the brush strokes.

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, 2017.  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.