Due to requests from within the student base, the August Competition will be focused on online submissions of original artworks (on no particular theme) that, in brief:

(1) have been created digitally or
(2) are digital representations of your own real-life 2D artworks:paintings, drawings, collages, etc.

The Gallery link for the Digital Art competition will go up next Monday.

To expand on the two categories above:

(1) Works that have been created digitally (e.g. on a computer). This can include "derivative works" (e.g. collages including some unoriginal works) but keep in mind the need for evidence of some originality (or "transformativeness") in such usage:

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work

..and the following entertaining account from the same page:

"Examples of derivative works under U.S. law

The most famous derivative work in the world has been said to be L.H.O.O.Q.,[18] also known as the Mona Lisa With a Moustache. Generations of US copyright law professors - since at least the 1950s - have used it as a paradigmatic example. Marcel Duchamp created the work by adding, among other things, a moustache, goatee, and the caption L.H.O.O.Q. (meaning "she has a hot tail") to Leonardo's iconic work. These few, seemingly insubstantial additions were highly transformative because they incensed contemporary French bourgeoisie,[19] by mocking their cult of
"Jocondisme,"[20] at that time said to be "practically a secular religion of the French bourgeoisie and an important part of their self image." Duchamp's defacement of their icon was considered "a major stroke of epater le bourgeois." Thus, it has been said that the "transformation of a cult icon into an object of ridicule by adding a small quantum of additional material can readily be deemed preparation of a derivative work.""

(2) Works that are digital representations of your own (original) real-life 2D artworks: paintings, drawings, collages, etc. Works could be scanned/otherwise-digitally-captured versions. The original 2D artwork should be of a kind whose quality can be properly appreciated and enjoyed within the constraints of the 2D mode of presentation possible online. Therefore a scan of a pencil-drawn sketch would be acceptable, but a photograph of a piece of pottery that you have made would not.

These are guidelines only of course, and we can only look forward to the many ways that people will creatively stretch the boundaries of "acceptability": e.g. Ishier's witty and popular photograph (?) of PubMed in the Sustenance competition:
http://news.ncbs.res.in/image/sustenancencbsresin