April's Artful Challenge..and More!

Welp.  We have reached the end of the month my friends and that means that my fellow collage competitor and I will duel it out with our creations for this month's theme...and by duel it out I mean that we ooo and aaa over each other's creative genius and cyber five each other through the internet!

Just to recap - the theme for the month of April was to create a piece influenced by an "Animal Cause" that we felt very passionate about and wanted to bring awareness towards.  Bambi chose the oh so adorable Red Panda that is predominately found in the mountains of Nepal as well as central China.  These furry little angel babies are unfortunately on the endangered species list due to loss of habitat from deforestation by logging and spread for agriculture. They are relatives of the panda as well as the racoon and I think the result is just the cutest little critter that I want to cuddle with all day.  You can watch the YouTube video posted in the previous blog post if you find yourself curious.

I kind of went berserk and decided to do a series of endangered animals which then morphed into an amazing collaboration with Global Conservation Force.  They are a very special non-profit organization that dedicates themselves to saving wildlife from extinction through education, conservation and anti-poaching efforts.  Meaning, they put people on the front lines to protect these beautiful creatures.  So needless to say, their mission and my passion coincided and a beautiful collaboration came to fruition!  With them in mind, I decided to create images of the Giraffe, Rhino, Pangolin and the Lion.  Unfortunately, all of these animals are on the endangered species list and it is with hope that together we can spread awareness and put an end to the needless killing.

Because Bambi and I both feel so strongly for the animals we chose, we are going to give 100% of all proceeds received from the sale of each print to our respective organizations (hers being the Red Panda Network and mine being the Global Conservation Force.)

To purchase a print of Bambi's adorable red panda, you can visit her Etsy Shop @ https://www.etsy.com/people/mymedievalmind?

To purchase a print of one (or all!) of my animals, you can navigate to the Gallery tab on my website.  

Bambi had a few words she wanted to impart to you all about this challenge:

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For our 2nd Artful Challenge we agreed to concentrate on an Animal Cause we felt passionate about and I chose the adorable Red Panda of China & Nepal. 

This adorable little red panda is sadly being starved out of his habitat due to humans encroaching on his forests and mountains. The good news is that it seems the word is out about his predicament and all who see him falls head over heels in love! The lucky ones are in captivity and are thriving there, even picking up some vices along the way. In his natural habitat he would survive on bamboo exclusively, until he discovered humans have apples! 

I have chosen a 12" x 12" sheet of scrapbook paper with an Asian theme to keep him in his natural element. This was the first time I have ever attempted to collage an animal and I tried so very hard to capture his adorable face, but alas I have failed miserably even tweaking and redoing it several times! But, I managed to get it done just under the deadline! Even though I did struggle a bit with this challenge, I am so very happy that I found this little guy! Once again Shelby's collaged animals are just amazing!

If anyone would like to help support the Red Panda, I am offering all proceeds from any print sales of my Red Panda collage to go directly to The Red Panda Network. 

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So without further adieu, here are our adorable little animal friends portrayed through paper!