What do you get when you take inspired traditional collage, fueled by candyfloss dreams and carousel musings... and combine it with two photoshop gurus ready to duel til their Intuos pens melt? You get the Seven Day Digital Art Collage Smackdown, featuring Angi Sullins, Silas Toball, and myself - Aimee Stewart!

For seven days in April, Angi Sullins - President of Duirwaigh Inc., threw down the gauntlet of challenge and stoked the fires of creativity with her handmade collages. In fact, her exact words were ""Hey Aimee! We've started a collage project and want to challenge you to participate. Did you just hear that? It was the sound of the gauntlet falling to the floor. Pick it up or die of shame." Heh!! And with those words, the Seven Day Digital Collage Smackdown was born.

To quote Angi: "Well, to be perfectly clear, it didn't start as a seven day smackdown, but we all liked what we did so much we just kept going. The rules? Each duelist was given a physical mixed-media collage and had one day to shape, mold, stretch, chisel, whittle, arrange, rearrange or derange said piece. Other than the time limit, and the fact that each artist had to use my physical collage as the basis of their work, there really were no limitations. It was like that scene in the movie Grease, when Danny Zuko shows up to drag race that creepy pock-mark faced guy in the souped-up black car with the flames on it? He turns to Danny and says with a snarl: "One rule. There are no rules.""

And let me tell you, for artists used to fine tuning their works for days on end, sometimes weeks - this rushed creative processed proved to be both challenging, and refreshing. The critical eye was exchanged for free-flowing art. There was no time to plot and plan. One simply had to grab the horns of inspiration and hang on for dear life! Yee-haw, muthaflippin'!

The results are a whimsical collection of collaborations held aloft by the unique, unified vision of all three of us. They are listed below by day, beginning with Angi's original collage, and followed by each "Smackdown" entry. Take a moment to check out all three for each day, to see what common elements made it into the digital manipulations, and what themes took on a life of their own in this mixed media challenge!

For more information and behind-the-scenes blogs about the whole Smackdown challenge, visit Angi's blog: [link]

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Angi and Silas:
Aimee:

DAY ONE:


DAY TWO:


DAY THREE:


DAY FOUR:


DAY FIVE:


DAY SIX:


DAY SEVEN: