Judge Comments

This floral grabs the eye for its excellent design, with its repeating organic rhythms, excellent design, beautiful variety in shape and subtle color variations.  The tightly controlled limited palette and close crop on blossoms creates a dynamic energy in the composition with vines and petals stretching off the page.

Judge Comments

A really compelling abstract landscape with so much going on in and around the tiny shapes to create curiosity and delight. This contains so much visual interest, and yet it is not overwhelming because it is expertly controlled with a limited palette and lots of large expanses of quiet areas for the eye to rest.  Expertly done.

Judge Comments

Beautiful dramatic composition and color 

 Award of 
Excellence 

Judge Comments

Beautiful light and sense of realism, rich darks and especially lost edges in the shadows, lovely neutrals and rich browns, greens and reds.  Great creation of form, texture, light in a small space.

Judge Comments

This little composition of a boat catching shade in the heat of summer captures the atmosphere of hot August sun perfectly:  the values are spot on.  The colorplay and value control that this artist has within the shadows makes this one an award winner. 

Judge Comments

Dignity and beauty can be found everywhere. This artist has shown through skillful use of lighting, color emphasis, composition, focus, and cropping that a ‘low’ subject can make a ‘high’ art form. I am not sure I would have believed it possible to have imagined a turkey portrait as a work of art. And yet. Here we have it, beautifully composed with the perfect turn of neck, lift of beak, rich luxuriant color recalling all manner of Renaissance portraiture. All as we gaze into the the doleful, mournful, (scornful?) eye of an utterly compelling bird. The rich green of what must have been a grassy field forms an utterly contemporary, perfectly complementary foil to the vibrant cadmiums and blues of the figure, classically lit by natural light. The deliberately simplified background heightens our experience of the varied textures and colors of the bird’s feathers, neck and head. It’s a show stopping photograph. 

Judge Comments

Everything about this spare, simple portrait contributes to its impact.   We feel the warmth of this man’s character and see the weight on his shoulders in his bent head and weathered face.  The artist’s choice of limited palette and simple light source heightens the psychological impact, and the contrast of the warm tones behind him and the cooler shadows on his face give an added sense of foreboding.  This painting is a great example of saying more with less.

Judge Comments

Wonderful use of color and value in a subject that’s difficult to handle. Great color range in the rocks and nice composition using criss-cross diagonals with light and shadow to advantage.  Nice sparkles of light.

Judge Comments

Great color, brushwork, atmosphere.

Judge Comments

Great narrative.

Judge Comments

Really creepy, interesting scene.

Judge Comments

 Despite yellow being a notoriously difficult color to handle, these trees sing and move with life and vibrancy.  Wonderful use of neutral midtone purples and vibrant darks to offset the predominant golds. The strong vertical trees on the downward sloping hill create an appealing composition. 

Judge Comments

Nice light, great technical painting, well orchestrated scene.