@jc13137 You are so funny, regarding cheering the judge on throwing the TWIST right back at me. (It worked!) And the few more grey hairs comment is too true. โ๐ฆณ Even my eyebrows now have some silvery slivers poking through. (Thanks, PITA!!!๐คฌ)
I'm ever so pleased that you enjoyed his lengthy commentary. I agree with (almost) everything he said (I really don't 'suck'!!! Ha ha), yet there had to have been a shorter way to have said it. I think, if you copied and pasted all of his comments and then added the parts I left out, you'd have a small instructional guide, LOL! (Our Mystery Guest Judge is reading all this stuff, so a playful jab here and there is not something I can resist! )
You REALLY did a great job blending your items and graphics with the colorful illustration you chose, @jc13137. I am VERY impressed. No one took me up on the challenge to find 35 (or more) items (including those used more than once) in your Set. I wish someone did. I would love it if somebody found more than PITA did!
As for the hundreds of images in this year's collections, there is a specific reason (to be revealed at another time) why I've included so many. --- Now that I think of it, my Contest Collections are as long as PITA's commentaries! OMG! NO!
In addition to the specific reason the collections are so loaded, there are others reasons too, if you're interested:
Twisted Gypsies holds an Enchanted Art Contest only once a year. Members seem to love it and because it's annual, I like to offer a huge selection of images to work with and a variety of art styles, hoping everyone can find one or more images they want to work on.
Many of the images are already in private collections of my own; kept on-hand for Award Sets, themed Sets in this and in other groups, for my own fun, and to use for Moodboards. In my Moodboard Tutorial: 10 Tips and Tricks for Magnificent Moodboards โข https://urstyle.fashion/styles/2165612 , I explain that I upload dozens of images before creating a moodboard. I may clip 40 and only use 16 of them. So, I have many images I can take from previous Sets, from my private collections, and I can add even more to give participants a large variety.
Not only that, but members may not wish to use certain images at the time, but may find them appealing and want to collect them for future use, or may use them in another contest that's going on at the same time. I happen to have so many... Why not share them? I love it when I see that someone used an image I edited or simply clipped to create a Set with or to use within a Set, and I also love when I browse through the collections of others and see images I've uploaded; those they were inspired to collect.
Long-time TwistedGypsies Members have come to expect the Annual Enchanted Art Contest Image Collection to be filled with a great many images. Since we're putting a TWIST on it and holding a year-long series of monthly Enchanted Art Contests, I felt the collections for each should be ample, simply because members may have come to expect that.
Lastly, another reason for all the images is so that those who have the time, or inclination, or who want to play and experiment with the monthly themes and techniques, have many images to work with, some more challenging than others. And the more Sets one creates, the more they learn how to use or do whatever they're focusing on mastering.
The initial reason for the multitude of images throughout this year will be revealed in the Fall season, as I have a 'schedule' of contest themes for this series and I do hope the contests are slowly becoming a bit more challenging as the months pass. Undoubtedly, with your skill, you likely don't need to learn anything from these particular contests, but I really hope you get something out of them, if only genuine laughter! And if you have a technique or effect you want to work with, please message me privately so I can fit it in to one of the remaining contests themes if at all possible!
Thanks, Sweet Gal!!!
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