We have a new affiliate, ! I'm a personal fan of the Cheshire Cat, so I was happy to agree when they sent me a note. They are, and I quote, "The grinniest and maddest club you'll ever know."

As for the RSS feed question I raised a couple days ago... I decided to try it out, since I need to learn the programming code behind it anyway. The basic information is on my website for those who indicated interest. I've only just begun programming it so *Silverayn can update it without administrator access to my website, so there's nothing special there yet. If you intend to use it (or test it out) and would like to see certain things (or not see things), let me know. I didn't get any comments on the poll, so right now I'm just going with whatever I come up with.

~Marie

The short Halloween contest is over, and our winners are *Ankaraven and *Menestria! I was looking for what Halloween means to people (whether they celebrate it or not), and I think our winning pieces are wonderful in that regard.

New contests will be coming soon, and I've already gotten some feedback on this forum post, so I think we'll be trying to have short contests and long contests running at the same time. The general consensus so far has been that two weeks for a short contest is about right, and I've had answers of anything from six weeks to three months for a long contest. That's about what I had in mind, so I'll probably go from there based on what the contest is.

Just a reminder, if you suggest a contest and we use it, you get points! I'll be editing the points journal to reflect the "big versus little" contest sizes, but you'll get points either way. 50 points for a big contest idea that we use. 20 points for a small contest that we use. (If it's already on our list, no luck, so speak fast.) Earning points in the club will get you prizes, anything from features to subscriptions!

Anyone who wants critique on their work can submit it by note - we'll post links in our critique journal immediately, so you'll get responses as soon as possible. We might start giving incentives to critique others' work, but to do that, we need your art to critique!

~Marie

EDIT: For those of you who responded to the new poll with "What's an RSS feed"... an RSS feed is an online text file that can be read by various programs and formatted to display in your Inbox, on your Desktop, on your phone... it's quite popular nowadays. Gmail (among others) has an RSS Reader right in your Inbox. For us, it'd be updated by your friendly admins (myself and *Silverayn), and anyone with the RSS reader would get the information without logging into deviantART.

Hello everyone, our affiliate club *Acid-Burst-Love-Fed is holding a 72-hour mini contest, all the details are here. You've got till Tuesday to submit anything you like that's titled "Horizon" (and presumably FITS the title), and you can submit more than once. Winner gets a huge number of features and a one month subscription.

If I had time, I'd join in myself... but yeah. Go take part, it sounds like fun!

~Marie

Hi all, can you check out the new forum post, please? I would really like some feedback before I post the next contest, which I would like to do soon. Thanks!

Your Friendly Neighborhood Admin

The first part of the Halloween contest has been extended until 11:59pm tonight, Sunday November 1st. I had forgotten that the US has the Daylight Savings time-change today (we set our clocks back one hour), and it's not fair of me to hold those of you not in the USA to my time if you weren't aware of the change. So I'm giving you an extra afternoon for my mistake.

Cheers! ~Marie

Contest entries have until noon on Sunday! Calling all contest entries!

For those 30 people who said they would be interested in critique, I've started the critique journal with some of my own work. I'm a writer, not an artist, so my work is literary, but I hope everyone will participate in sharing work of any kind, and giving feedback. If you're unsure about critiquing, take a look at the critique journal. I've written an introduction that I think is pretty clear.

Please send me whatever work you want me to add to the list!

~Marie

I don't know how many of you use the new Critique function deviantART added in the last few months (I know I haven't really), but it's a really good feature. I know I would like to become a better artist, and my technique is terrible. I would like to propose a new style of submissions - not for the gallery articles, as we have been doing a couple times a month to showcase the artwork of our members, but to critique each others' work.

Have no fear, the regular submissions will continue as usual! We would take submissions with the headline "Critique" (or something like that) and post them in a journal entry for our members to take a look at and go critique. And when I say critique, I mean use the critique feature, which requires a minimum of 100 words... this isn't that hard if you truly give the artist all the feedback you can, good and bad. My first critique was over 300. If people like this idea, we might even try to hold workshops on different themes, from content to technique.

If you all are up for it, submit away! If your note says it's for critique, we'll separate it from the regular submissions. I haven't created a critique journal yet, but if anyone submits work, I will. Also, give me your feedback on the new polls (critique poll and workshopping poll)!

~Marie

*pisatielnitsa (I need to get in the habit of signing these, now that *Silverayn's around.)

Hey, I exist! Yeah, I'm a failure, but I'm still here. Some business, lots of pleasure, and then a bit of me last...

I've gone through our newest member requests, and we now have 248 members. We're just over two years old (and I'm not even sure if the club officially "started" when the account was registered), and we've almost hit 250. I'm pleased! I hope you're pleased.

Congratulations go out to *Quna and *Menestria who gained new ranks in the club. *Quna is our newest Mage - she's stuck with us long enough to earn 90 points from taking part in contests, promoting the club, and encouraging her friends to join us.

You may remember *Menestria's "To the South" that won first place in our recent (summer) contest. So far she's only submitted this painting to us besides the contest entry, but I'd encourage everyone to take a stroll through her gallery! I'm personally a fan of her deviant ID.

And I'm happy to announce a Spur-of-the-Moment Halloween contest! Obviously I'm down to the last minute here, so please don't think I'm looking for masterpieces. I think you'll enjoy this, it's for the "take a break from work and relax" category, and hopefully will spark some creativity among all of you as the weather begins to dampen spirits.

I hope to be around more in the next month than I was in the last. This contest alone should ensure that, but I'm going to stop being sure of things for a little while. (I may rant in my journal at some point for those who care.) A round of applause, please, for *Silverayn! She's earned it, she's been a great help with submissions.

~Marie

Your attention please! I'd like to thank *Silverayn for offering to help me with submissions. Please go check out her page, give her much love, and otherwise shower her with hugs! She'll be the one keeping us from falling so far behind again.

Thanks, *Silverayn!

~Marie

My apologies to all for taking so long to... well, do anything around here. My semester has now started and life is hectic. This is no excuse for ditching you all, however. I am (right now) processing the new member requests and various messages that I need to send, and will move from that to submissions, which I have not attended to since the last week of July.

Given this and my schedule over the upcoming months, I'm hoping someone would be interested in helping me out! One or more submission admins would be a blessing, and if you're interested in doing more, I'd love to have you. I feel horrible when I can't keep up with this club - you all (and your artwork) deserve better than once or twice a month attention. If you're interested in helping me out, your submissions duties would be to add each submitted deviation to our collections (pick any of the various categories that fits best), and then submit a news article with thumbnails of all the new additions. I can give you my template for the news articles, all you would need to do is add the thumbs into it as you collect the artwork. It doesn't take too much time, less than the previous system, but it does take some time in a consistent fashion. This should be twice a month at minimum (though I've obviously failed at that), but weekly certainly wouldn't hurt, we have plenty of submissions and we're always growing.

I would like to have another contest starting soon, but the day-to-day things need to at least get back on track before I can think about that. Club admins-to-be could help me here too if it's of interest. I would like to see more activities and contests on a regular basis to give our club members plenty to participate in, but I think I'll look for assistance before I try and expand the club. Suggestions and volunteers always welcome!

Please forgive my shortcomings.

Yours, Marie

The judges are in! Our contest winners are as follows!

First Place: *Menestria with [link]

Second Place: =sombrefeline with [link]

Honorable Mentions (2): *Ankaraven with [link] and *Tagath with [link]

Congratulations to everyone who participated, the entries looked amazing!

~Marie

PS - I'll get on submissions as soon as I can, promise!

Hello! I have not fallen off the face of the earth, and I do apologize for disappearing right at the end of a contest. Life is... life, and it gets in the way of things. I am going through the contest entries right now, and it looks like we have a lot of good submissions. I wasn't able to give a last minute warning for contest submissions, but we are set to go as planned. I will post the entries and then *Nightpark and I will judge.

EDIT: Congratulations to *Ankaraven, our first member to reach the level of Heretic (160 points or more)! Also to ~Kietra-Akine, our newest Mage! Do go check them out, give them some love!

~Marie