easy art techniques

Well, this weekend I entered my little art quilt "migration" into our upcoming quilt show. The quilt is named after the theme of the excercise which was the word migration. So whales popped into my head - not literally- but the concept of the gentle giants migrating through the oceans did. The piece only measures about 9" x 11" and I used some simple and fun techniques.....
First I chose the background fabric (cotton) and I wanted to also use some fabulous white silk that I had.
I then cut some whale shapes and arrow shapes from freezer paper to make stencils. I ironed (dry iron) the freezer paper stencils to the fabrics. For the paint I used Shiva Paintstiks and laid down a generous amount on a palette (paper plate). I used a stencil brush to lightly "paint" in the stencils and then added a few accents with a pigma marker. I fused the silk squares to dark blue cotton squares and fused those to the background. I added some hand stitching and French knots with black pearl cotton.
I machine quilted it in a wavy design and I also echo quilted around the arrow shape.
I certainly don't expect any ribbons as we have a VERY talented group of art quilters in our area but I am interested to get the judges feedback.
How many of you have made and/or entered an "art quilt" ?
If you haven't dabbled in art quilting do you want to?
What different quilt techniques have you played with lately???