Bmuse HEAT WAVE Challenge

The name of these cards, from left to right are: "It's Killing Me!", "The Devil's Sauna", and "Hot Enough Yet?!" and are my "Hotter Than Hades" series. So why did I create these skellirific, macabre cards? Well....

In one of the groups I belong to, Bmuse, there was a challenge to create cards in the theme of "Heat Wave". This was of course brought on by the recent heat wave this country has been having! I know it's been going on here with 110 degrees each day! I wasn't going to do this challenge because the cards in the photos file were JUST AMAZING! Sometimes I'm a little intimidated by the talent flying around in these groups since I'm still technically a newbie! Anyways, I overheard someone saying something in a store recently that just had me laughing out loud! It was one of those REALLY HOT DAYS and this store had NO air conditioning! Ugh! A woman in another isle said "It's hotter than the devil's sauna in here!". Well, because I'm completely addicted to art now, I KNEW I had to make a card around that quote, so I made these and decided to enter them in the contest.

And guess what?!? There were three winners out of the group chosen by all group members through a poll, and I won for "BEST ILLUSTRATION OF THE THEME - HEAT WAVE" !! Whooooo Hoooooo! I've never won an art contest before and I am absolutely thrilled beyond words!! An humbled and maybe just a tad, wee little bit more confident in my artwork! Wow! It's so cool! Or should I say HOT?!? Hee Hee! The prize was choosing three collage sheets from the Bmuse store, which is one of my favorite art supply places! I use Vickie's pre-cut atc blanks all the time because cutting those strait lines is kind of difficult for me with my goofy hands! Anyways, it was awesome to pick out some beautiful collage sheets to use in my artwork! Thank you so much Bmuse members and Vicki and the universe for leading me towards the amazing world of collage art! It's awesome!

Note on process used for these cards: The skeletons are from the Bmuse Black and Tan sheet called "Skeletons". The skeletons on "It's Killing Me" and "Hot Enough Yet?!" were both covered with a fire/flames illustration printed out on waxed studio transfer paper to get that rosy/fires of hell glow! hee hee! The suns are adorable charms from Judy's Vintage Treasures. Hades is the one holding the skeleton on the pitchfork and the background paper is from a photograph of some planet I believe, digitally altered with a color filter then printed out. "Hot Enough" has flames cut out of the same paper which are much more apparent on the actual card. The bathtub, flames, and sun in "The Devil's Sauna" were also done with the waxed studio paper. The skeleton was added last and a notch cut into the bathtub to tuck the little guy into it. I made this collage on a stark white background on purpose to illustrate the "white hot" aspect of fire.