Light Space & Time Award Winners Announced...

A few weeks ago, I submitted my entries into the 5th Annual "Animals" International Juried Art Competition, sponsored by Light Space and Time Gallery, in Jupiter, Fla.

The results have just been announced and I'm very happy to be able to announce that two of my pieces won awards!

In November the gallery conducted the 5th Annual “Animals” Online Art Competition. 2D and 3D artists (including photography) from around the world were called upon to make online submissions for possible inclusion in to the Gallery’s December 2015 online group art exhibition. The “Animals” theme was considered to be any art which depicted mammals, birds and any animals that live in the water for inclusion into this art exhibition.

The gallery received 724 total entries from 39 different states and 22 different countries from around the world, including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Monaco, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Spain, St. Maarten, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

My first winning entry, “Bison and Calf in Yellowstone”, earned an Honorable Mention, placing it in the top ten entries in the Photography & Digital Category!   This digital painting is based on a photograph I took while Eric and I were on our road trip to Yellowstone earlier this year.  It's available as prints and on canvas on my artist's website

In addition, “White Horse at the Stable Door” earned a Special Recognition, placing it in the top 60 entries in the Photography & Digital Category. This digital painting started out as a 3D render that I created in DAZ 3D.  The final render was then treated with digital painting techniques to give it a painterly feel.  It reminds me of the cover art of the "pony books" by English authors like the Pullein-Thompson sisters and Ruby Ferguson that I adored when I was a young girl.  This piece is also available on canvas and prints, as well as pillows and tote bags, on my artist's website.

I was thrilled to have two entries included among the winners - quite an accomplishment with over 700 entries!

Easels and Diesels Art Festival

We live to the north of Houston, Texas, in the small town of Tomball. We love the atmosphere of a small town, and are very happy here.  Near the big city, but not IN it.

Each year Tomball hosts a number of outdoor festivals, such as the German Heritage Festival and "Bugs, Brew and Barbecue", Tomball's own version of Oktoberfest. Always lots of great entertainment, food, beer and lots of stalls selling all manner of stuff.

Earlier this year, I was excited to hear that a new festival, Easels and Diesels Art Festival was open for registration. The "Diesels" part of the name stems from the fact Tomball is right on a railroad track and the entire train depot area has been revitalized and now hosts a multitude of events.

The Easels and Diesels Art Festival is a juried art festival with music, food and beverages, and of course, ART.

I wanted to be part of it this year and sent in an email to get the information.

THEN I started thinking about the logistics about participating in this show...

First, since it is juried, I would have to be accepted, that's the first hurdle.  I'm thinking it may not be much of a hurdle since I've already been to two other live shows and online competition as well.

BUT, this wouldn't just be a case of hanging a painting on a wall in a gallery.  Since this is an outdoor show, I would need to provide my own 10 x 10 tent such as the one below.

Then I started thinking about how I would need INVENTORY.  The one good thing about making my art available through Print On Demand sites like Zazzle and Fine Art America is that I don't have to maintain an inventory.  But if I want to have my own stall in a festival, I'm going to need inventory, which I would have to pay for up front. 

In addition to a few nice display prints, I would need smaller prints, postcards, greeting cards and other items such as ceramic tiles with my art on.

Deductible business expenses all, but I mustn't over extend myself.

So.... the plan is to go along to this year's festival and see how it's all set up, how it's run etc. and get a feel of "could I actually DO this?" 

(I'll let you in on a secret - I am painfully shy and tend to keep myself to myself.  I would probably sit in the back of my tent and try to hide under the table if someone looked like they were going to approach me!)

THEN, if I feel like it's something I could do and would enjoy, I've got a whole year to get my act together and get the tent, the inventory etc.

Then perhaps I could take the whole show on the road and participate in other outdoor art shows.

In the meantime, I've been accepted to another event, the Jomar Visions Art Excellence Juried Open Competion. 

I'll let you know how it goes...

The Making of Dance With Me

When Light, Space and Time Gallery announced their 3rd annual "Figurative" competition, I was hesitant to enter.  I wasn't sure that anything in my portfolio would fit the criteria, but then I remembered "Dance with Me", which I did in 2010.

I had fallen in love with Jack Vettriano's "Dance me to the End of Love" and set about the task of creating a piece with a similar atmosphere to it, using the 3D graphics programs that I was now working with.

It was done in two parts: the background image was created in Bryce 3D and the figures were done in DAZ 3D.

In Bryce, I worked on the ground plane to get a texture that would look similar to the infinite plane the dancers in Vettriano's original were dancing on.

I ended up using a water plane to get the effect I was after.  My dancers are literally dancing on water, lol.

Then I played in the atmosphere editor, positioning the sun and changing the parameters to get the overall color I wanted, and the layer of haze on the horizon.

When I had the background the way I wanted it, I rendered it in Bryce and saved it as a jpeg file that could be used as a backdrop in DAZ 3D.

Now came the really fun part - dressing and posing my 3D characters to recreate the scene and capture the atmosphere of the original.

Since the characters start out in the position shown below (only naked), you can see that quite a bit of work is involved in this step!

Posing a single character in DAZ is fairly easy, even easier if you use one of the many pre-set poses available.  But posing and positioning two characters in a 3D environment, viewed on your 2D computer screen, offers lots of challenges.

For example, when viewed from the front, you might position your characters to be close together as if they were dancing, but then look at them from above and see that they are actually quite some distance apart from one another.  The same can happen if you look from the left or the right too.

So as you work and pose and create your scene, you have to constantly view the scene from all directions to make sure everything is working together.

Eventually, I got my dancers the way I wanted them, as close as I could get them to the dancers in Vettriano's original.  Then I adjusted the lighting to blend with the atmosphere on the background and clicked on RENDER.

Finally I did a little bit of post work in Photoshop Elements - I used the dodge/burn tool to give the illusion of a reflection of the dancers and anchor them to the ground plane, then it was finished.

So, going back to the beginning of my post, when I got the notice about the "Figurative" art competition in April, I went ahead and sent in my entry to Light, Space and Time and now I'm very happy to announce that "Dance with Me" earned a Special Recognition Award!!

The competition received 592 entries from 23 different countries from around the world so you can see how much of an honor this is for me!

All of the winners can be seen here.  My thanks to John Rath for his work in running the Light, Space and Time online gallery and for giving artists like myself the opportunity to participate in competitions and be included in exhibitions.

And the Winner is....

The whole experience of participating in my first art exhibition was very enjoyable.

Everyone I met, from Show Chair, Daniel Brent, to Suzanne Buckland, President of Artists Alive and Well, Patrick Palmer, the Juror for the exhibition, and all the other artists were so nice, friendly, down-to-earth and welcoming, I really felt at ease and the nervousness I had about meeting a group of strangers completely disappeared.

Having my work recognized with an Honorable Mention was more than I expected - you could have knocked me over with a feather!

Artists Alive and Well Juried Open Exhibition

Today was a first for me. 

One of my artworks was accepted into a Juried Art Exhibition, sponsored by Artists Alive and Well, and today was the installation of the various pieces on the Upper Concourse at 1600 Smith Street, in Houston Texas.

I helped check-in the art, making sure that all the art was labelled, was correct and in good condition.  I also got to meet a lot of very talented people I hadn't met before and see some wonderful art.

I've never been involved in anything like this before  and I have to say I was a little nervous the night before.  After all, I was going to be among professional artists and photographers.

And, you know what? I didn't feel intimidated.  Everyone was very nice, very helpful and encouraging and I was made to feel that my contribution to the morning's work was valued.

The artist's reception will be on Monday when the Juror, Patrick Palmer, Chair of the Glassell Studio School and Department of Art History Faculty at the Museum of Fine Arts/Houston, will announce the awards.