Gnomes were the theme for this month’s Art Elements design challenge. Gnomes are a type of fae creature and are earth elementals. You’re probably most familiar with gnomes as garden decor or as the spokesperson for a certain online travel booking website. As a long time fan of gnomes, I had so many ideas for exploring this theme. Alas, I only managed two of them.
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The theme for the first Art Elements design challenge of the new year was ‘berries.’ There are berries and then there are berries. By which, of course, I mean there are those things botanists classify as berries, and then there are the things we call berries but which are actually some other part of a plant. I was inspired by both kinds of berries for this challenge.
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The final Art Elements theme challenge for the year is “Handmade Christmas” which gives us a chance to catch up on holiday projects during what is usually a busy time of year for many. To make it even easier on us participants, we can enter any gifts we make, even baked goods. Baked goods for an art challenge, you say? Well, why not? Have you never heard of the culinary arts?
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The theme for this month’s Art Elements challenge is fossils. When I signed up to participate in the design challenge I had zero ideas for interpreting the theme. Probably because my brain went immediately to the enormous dinosaur skeletons featured prominently in natural history museums. “Dinosaur bones” was all I could think of because, as usual, I was being too literal. I just needed to let my muse free associate a bit and then I had more ideas than time to execute them.
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When “octopus” was announced as the theme for the monthly Art Elements design challenge I definitely squealed out loud. What’s not to love about octopuses? And tentacles? Are they not one of the most fun design elements ever? As always, there were too many project ideas to fit into one month, but just enough time to try a few.
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The theme for the Art Elements design challenge this July was “flowers.” Even though summer is the season for flowers, I always think of spring for them. Because summer just seems too hot for anything so apparently fragile to thrive. But thrive they do. The hostess for this theme, Marsha Neal, asked us to share photos of flowers on our social media for inspiration. I’m not great at macro photography, but this theme prompted me to pay attention to the blooms in my neighborhood. I was surprised at the abundance and variety, from clover and day lilies growing wild in the vacant lot, to iris, pansies, roses, bleeding hearts, cone flowers, and more in planters. Were they there last summer and I was just too hot to notice?
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The theme for this month’s art design challenge from the Art Elements team is ‘selkies and the sea.’ I was so excited when I saw the theme because selkies are one of my favorite mythical creatures. In addition, I was a pinniped ecologist once upon a time and saw this theme as a perfect opportunity to try sculpting seals, and possibly sea lions. I’m warning you in advance, I got carried away making selkies and sharing seal trivia.
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The theme for this month’s Art Elements design challenge is forests. There are many different types of forest, categorized by latitude and elevation (tropical, temperate, boreal), the dominant types of trees (evergreen or deciduous; broadleaf, coniferous, or mixed), annual precipitation or general climate, stage of development (old vs new growth), etc. So many forests, so little time.
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This month the theme for the Art Elements design challenge is repurposing. Some of the materials and techniques I used for this challenge were reminiscent of my childhood art projects. I don’t remember those projects being as frustrating or messy as the ones I tackled this month. Maybe because there were always adults around to help and to clean up? Technically there was an adult around to clean up this time too. But she’d rather make art than have a clean and tidy home.
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Welcome to my reveal for the 2019 Bead Peep’s Swap ‘n’ Hop jewelry design and blog hop challenge. I may have gotten carried away by my enthusiasm for this challenge. I’m probably not the only one. It can be fun to test your creativity by letting someone else choose the design elements for your jewelry, and in turn see how they get along with what you chose for them. I typically participate in design challenges where there’s a set theme but I get to choose my components. But from time to time, I like to push my limits by working with components I might not have chosen for myself. So, here we go!
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