8 out of 14

First to get the bad news out of the way. 6 of my entries got nothing, including one that I was really surprised about. I was sure that the boy with the peacock would win something, but it didn’t!

Also my Giraffe painting, and my drawing from the abstracted collage. On reflection, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised about them. After all, I was up against many other really great artists, and I’ve never painted before.

The other photos that did not win were the bitten gingerbread man, (I’m not really surprised. I probably grossed out the judges. :p)

The telephone pole. They claimed it would be better if I had shot it at a worms eye view and held the camera vertically. Well, that wasn’t the point of the picture at all. The subject was the interesting metal numbers on the pole, not the pole itself, and shooting it at a worm’s eye view would not have gotten the landscape background.

And the butterfly, ladybug, and flower. They criticized it for the butterfly being slightly out of focus. I suppose their criticism is understandable, but I was using a macro lens, and when you’re that close to a subject, you can’t have everything in focus. The lens just doesn’t work that way.

Now for the good stuff. :)

I won 5 third place ribbons.

First for my painting of waves.

Considering I had never painted anything before I painted this, I think third place is pretty good. :)

For my photos, my picture of the inside of the Desert Dome got a third,

As did the flamingo tail. The judges note card criticized it for not including more of the bird. Um, that wasn’t the point of the picture at all. I was specifically focusing on the tail feathers. I have plenty of pictures of flamingos. Anyone can just snap a picture of a flamingo. That’s not what I was going for.

My sunset tree also got third, and they criticized it for having the horizon in the center. Wow. That is an antiquated rule that really needs to be done away with. To begin with this is not a landscape picture, and if I hadn’t centered the horizon, it would have cut off part of the tree, or some of the flaming shadow. I have versions like that, I took many pictures that evening. None of them looked as good as this one in my opinion. I am going to post the others on my photo blog now. Look for that later tonight.

My Leaf picture also got third.

I got one second place ribbon, my two birds. Their main criticism was my choice of mat color. I picked the pink on purpose because it brought out the pink in the parrot. But apparently the judge has something against the color pink.

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: The blue ribbon winners!

First up I was SHOCKED that of all the things I entered, my carved printing press plate got a blue! I wasn’t expecting anything really. Maybe third at best, but it got blue!

And finally, one of my favorite pictures, the bull riding one, also won first place.

When I get my entries back next week, I will share what the judges had to say about all of them. I only remembered the comments that I absolutely disagreed on, so I’ll be able to share the others when I have the notes in front of me. They had good things to say about even the ones they didn’t award anything to, so it’s not like they’re a bunch of mean art haters. They just didn’t understand some of what I entered.