just a suggestion about blending: it looks like you paint over the borders you are given. if you make a layer under the original tile, cut out the Draw Here square, and paint underneath the borders, you can make the blending work better..

You paint outside the lines. Read the tile tutorial. Why are you obsessed with your scores anyway?

i even used the marquee tool, but it keeps deleting it.
scores ARE given too much importance here, if I get 2s on all of my tiles will I be taken seriously as an artist? no. people tell me to "learn to draw," and that hurts, as I know I CAN draw, just not... blend.

yadoking. if you use photoshop, do this: make a marquee in the draw here area. Inverse the seleciton (shift+ctrl+I) then copy and paste that to a new layer. voila! the border's on it's own layer, work on the background layer and the border will never be touched.just merge it back before you save. I think you should stay. I like the dream quality of your tiles. stay and improve; tiles works!

Thank you, greg.
It's just that whenever I make a tile, i always get low scores, which doesn't bother me as much as the fact that I get no input to improve my work. many of my tiles I don't know why they had low scores, and I never will know without comments. If you're "not a good artist" , shouldn't you be entitled to some suggestions?
Take, for example, this tile:

http://tiles.ice.org/tile_info_surreal.php?tile_id=15147

I accomplished exactly what I wanted to accomplish, the blends are fine, the ideas were there... so why was it thought so low of? Was it too simple?

I would start by leaving out the flying brown sock. It's at the same height and the same size as the aqua cactus hand, so gives your tile a "square" look that detracts from the flow of a quilt. Second, the angles of the snow cabin should have met sooner. true, there are liberties you can take with a surreal quilt design; however, you need to consider things like balance and flow. It sometimes means giving up certain visions you have, or reworking them to fit.
Lastly, I know you have your own artistic ideas, but I think they need some definition. If you have something to get across (especially if it's abstract) things need to be more defined. I'm not talking sharpness, because you can make a well 'defined' fog or blur or haze. . . you have to think about your audience a little; especially on a collaborative site. If you are just making art for yourself; people aren't always going to enjoy it with you :)
I think tiles.ice.org is a wonderful place to grow as an artist. it teaches discipline, it teaches compromise...teaches a lot!

btw, are you working off of PNG?

sometimes PNG, sometimes JPG.
thanks for the comments.