WINNERS
I looked for
Subject
Technique
Brushstrokes
Texture
Realism
Perspective
Light and Shadow
Going through all of the images was a wonderful experience and at one point I had 45 paintings all rallying for 1st place.
However, a choice had to be made and three paintings have been chosen from the absolutely amazing paintings submitted. All of you that submitted truly realistic paintings should be very, very proud of your work.
The quality in this contest was above and beyond any I have seen in many other contests both here and elsewhere around the www and I am very
pleased to see such great artists at Fine Art America.
I will name the Highly Commended at the bottom. These are pieces that would have been in the top three if I opted for more winners.
So without further ado….
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In FIRST PLACE with his Scottish soldier of the Sealed Knot at the Ruthin Seige Re-ennactment is Harry Robertson.
I was thrilled to be able to open up this image to see the textures and colours that Harry has used in this Oil Painting On Board.
With many textures in the image it would have been easy for him to gloss over some of them but, from the beret to the sword, each material has been faithfully reproduced. Harry had two images in the contest, both as carefully rendered as the other but this one completely captured what I had been looking for when I opened the contest. Well done Harry!
This soldier is a member of the Sealed Knot organisation who perform re-ennactments of battles of the English Civil War. In this particular case he is taking part in the Seige of Ruthin castle by the Parliamentarian army. All the clothes, belts and weapons are made by the members
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In SECOND PLACE with her painting of Ivy is Cara Bevan
If you open up this Acrylic On Wood painting you can see the meticulous detail on Ivy’s coat. Each hair seems to be placed on with as much care as the next. The mixture of pebbles and soft fur were fantastically done and the textures perfect. A truly beautiful painting of what was obviously a much loved cat.
It’s the most enigmatic creatures that catch your eye. You admire their prowess and are humbled to be in their presence. I felt this way towards Ivy, our beautiful tiny cat. She lost a battle with cancer near the end of her 16 year life, but her life was full of wonder. Go to my Website to read her whole story.
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In THIRD PLACE with her Gentle Calf is Margaret Stockdale
Again, the care taken with this wonderful Oil On Canvas painting of a young calf was very obvious. Fur or animal hair is notoriously difficult to pull off well. Each muscle and fold on the calf was well placed and you could see the ‘puppy’ fat around the neck almost wanting to place your fingers in his warm coat.
The textures and strokes again impressed me with well done lighting, so I placed this third.
This painting is one of a series of large format cattle paintings on which I am currently working. This young calf is a Murray Grey cross.
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HIGHLY COMMENDED
These following works are Highly Commended. In no particular order.
Raccoon Found Treasure – Frank Wilson
Eternal Progress – Arie Van der Wijst
Quinces – Horacio Cardozo
Big Will – Meridith Martens
Maggie – Joey Nash
Eyes of the Heart – Karen Noles
The sofa – Toby Boothman
Boys and their toys – Roberta Martin
To view all images please go to Realistic Painting
In judging this contest I was looking for several things. On all of the images I had to be able to look closely at the work using Full Resolution Preview so, if you feel you should have won but have a tiny image up with no full res preview then I could not judge properly and you may like to rethink your upload for another contest.
Most of the artwork was of exceptional quality and deserved a place here but I had to narrow it down and when I could not narrow it down further I used personal taste.
© 2010, 1stAngel. All rights reserved.
Such gorgeous, gorgeous images!!!!!!!!! Congratulations to the winners … such amazing, fabulous talent!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!