I was invited last week to join a weekly artist’s challenge on Flickr, hosted by Crowabout (aka Nancy Baumiller). The host sends out a collage sheet on Sundays to all members of the group by posting it on Flickr. From there it’s basically a free-for-all; you are allowed to do what ever you want with the images to create a piece of art. You must use at least 3 images to be in the running for the weekly prize. But you are encouraged to use all the images.

The challenge as I see it is to create an original work that uses the images in different and unexpected ways. I was so excited to play I made mine into a real game, based on the old game spinners of yesteryear , that I’ve noticed are finding their way back into vogue. So I put the collage sheet into the collage creator program and separated the spinner base from the other images and enlarged it. I printed the spinner base on card-stock. I then hand colored the spinner base and all the little faces. I made a real spinner out of another image (printed 5x in a row) and cut it out in the shape of a needle spinner. I poked a hole in the center of the base and attached the spinner to the base with a copper brad.

This game was then placed on top of a variety of images from the collage sheet, including the tattoo of a pretty senorita. The senorita I also enlarged and flipped and printed on card-stock. Her blouse is another image of an old box of beef bouillon cubes!

I embellished the senoritas with pencil, ink and gems.

The Crow-about Challenge was lots of fun and took me most of Sunday to complete. I guess I will go outside now and enjoy some of this summer weather!