And the Winner Is.....

Well I didn't get the top award but I made up for that in quantity, receiving a first in oils and a second and third in pastel at a well respected juried local art show. That makes 3 winners of the 4 paintings I entered.

The Apple Blossom Festival art show has been going on for 26 years and draws thousands of people. The art group I just joined puts it on each year and does a fantastic job, well run, well lit and beautifully hung. So I'm honored that the animals were put up they don't always appeal to the jurors. A pastel landscape took best of show and deserved it, getting second and third next to that was a treat.

Here are the winners ( all are available, contact me by email)
First in oil/acrylic Come Closer:A Portrait of Me and 2 Kids in a Giraffe Eye 16x20 sorry for the long title but without it many miss the point of the close crop
















Second in Pastel 10x20 The Chase, done from an actual experience I had at Animal Ark in Reno NV one of the very few places in the country where you can see cheetah running free at top speed. A real peak experience. They lay out a cable in a huge field and put a lure on it, a motor runs the lure up to 60 MPH. at this moment in the painting the lure had done a 180 and so did the cheetah, I added a secret part a tommy gazellle leaping out of the painting but no one finds this unless I tell them .












Third in Pastel 8x10 Portrait of Cordelia, long horn Owl. she is also a resident of Animal Ark and pastel was the perfect medium to capture the incredible texture of the feathers, tho I did not succumb to doing every feather.