Get To Snapping...New Challenge Is Official Launched!

These give-aways are so much fun and I cannot help but try once more!  Get to share the art, or artfully share your skills with me.

As viewers of my blog already know this time it is a photo challenge.  Submit your favorite photo that you think would make a great painting to me, and a pic will be selected to win.  It could be anything old or new.  Landscapes, vacation photos, funny people, pets, pretty sunsets, flowers, bugs, street scenes, babies, and who know what else?  It is all good and I want to see them.  One winner will chosen to win a painting from me.  The prize has yet to be determined.  Thinking about giving away a winner's choice this time.

The rules are:

One photo submission per day by email or by Facebook.

Submit your favorite photos that showcase something you think would make a beautiful painting.

Finalist will be selected based on creativity, clarity, color and how well the photo can become art.

Send photos to artzyone@cox.net  or post on https://www.facebook.com/Lindadunbarfineart  or https://www.facebook.com/linda.h.dunbar

All rights to publish or display the photos are given at the time of submission to LindaDunbarArt.

So get out your cameras or get out your photo albums and show me what ya got!

Two photos below have already been submitted and I love them!  Keep them coming.

We Have a Winner!

The entries are in for the Ballerina - "I Hope You Dance" oil painting!  She may only be 5 inches high by 7 inches long, but she sure has got a lot of attention.  Tons of emails about her and she even won a coveted spot as the Painting of the Day on DailyPaintWorks.com.

She received more entries than even I could hope for and a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who liked my Facebook page and shared the contest on their facebook page.

We placed all entries on a slip of paper and into a basket they went.  

My trusted husband was the only one here to do the drawing for me.

Disregard the watermelon in the background and the dishes in the sink!!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

The winner is Mandi Owings Ostein!!

The Art in the Square...SOLD!

Utica Square is about as "High End" as it gets for shopping in Tulsa.  A gorgeous setting for some of the nicest of stores, and each year in the fall they promote local artist with a show to sell paintings and other art.  Today was a beautiful crisp fall day and it brought out lots of artist and shoppers alike.

As a member of Alpha Rho Tau a Civic Group of Artist, I was able to show 3 of my pieces of work and sell two out of three! Hooray!!  That's three paintings sold this week, one on Daily Painting Works.  Makes me feel so accomplished and even better, means an order of new paints is going in on Monday!  Yippee!!

These are dear painting friends who were also selling or shopping today.  They are a wonderful support group, who encourage each other and work hard to promote art in Tulsa.  Each of them are in a painting class with me.  There are so many more who should be in this photo. Our booth was right outside The Wild Fork restaurant, and let say the food smells were amazing.  Sell or no Sale, it was a fun day.

New Challenge For Facebook!

Aren't you lucky??  Well, as faithful followers of my blog I am going to let you in on the next giveaway.  This time it is a photo challenge.  It has been made pretty clear on my blog and on my other social media outlets that I stink at composition and photography.

People send me photos off the internet all the time, but they are copy protected and I need originals.  So my solution is to trade a painting for the winning photo.  Not sure what the prize will be yet.  That is still to be determined.

The rules will be:

One photo submission per day by email or by Facebook.

Submit your favorite photos that showcase something you think would make a beautiful painting.

Finalist will be selected based on creativity, clarity, color and how well the photo can become art.

Can't wait to see your photos and what you suggest I could paint.  Oh and it does not have to be a recent one either.

Yikes, Yikes and Triple Yikes!  The time is approaching for my trip to Scottsdale Artist School.  Am I ready?  Am I prepared?  No!  Will I ever be?  Doubtfully I will never be, but I plan to cinch myself up, load the hatchback and go when the time comes.

When I confessed to Yoda I was nervous and afraid of embarrassing myself out there he replied, "Sister, you should be nervous.  I would be nervous if I was going there!"  Not the reassuring words I was hoping for from my instructor, but brutal honesty and I guess that's okay.

This trip to Scottsdale is to focus on still life paintings and portraits of models with some of the best artist in the nation.  Each day I paint, because the old adage is very true, practice does make perfect.  Well certainly not perfect in my case, but it makes me better.  Since I don't have a model in my studio posing for me on a regular basis, I have been trying to get there thru photos.  Below is a portrait I did of my grandson.  The first portrait is from a photo taken by Shannon Walton Photography at ShannonWalton.net who graciously allowed me to publish it here on my blog.  The others are from black and white snapshots.

Weston

Carnival Boy

Bunny

Long way to go, but better than I was.  Now, if these dang dogs would just pose for me!

Wordless Wednesday?

Recently I was told about "Wordless Wednesday" for bloggers.  On Wednesday you can apparently post just a photo or two with nothing to say.  I learned about this last Thursday and have been looking forward to it ever since.  Now that it is here, the photos I want to post seem to me to need a few words. So, I will try to make this "Not So Wordy Wednesday" instead.

Found this photo of a boy carnival worker from the 1930s and fell in love with it.  Just knew he needed to be painted, so today I did an Alla Prima session.  Alla Prima is Italian for all in one session, loosely translated.  Painted him this afternoon.

 The photo has a very large snake coiled around his neck and did not paint that even though, I think the snake makes him cool.  Not sure, but I may go back and add his pet at a later date.  He is still so wet, he was hard to photograph without a shiny glare.

So what do you think?  Snake or no Snake?  I am taking a poll.....Help me out.

They Call it ArtWork for a Reason....It's a Challenge!

Me...I love a good competition and art challenges offer that with little to no cost.  Recently I joined DailyPaintWorks.com as a venue to sell my work.  They offer many other fun things for artist besides just the gallery aspect.  One thing is a weekly painting challenge.  This week's challenge posted a photo of leaves and the instructions said you could use it to inspire you to paint the photo or some other fall painting.  I loved the photo so much, I wanted to try to create my version of it in paint and here are the results.

The Daily Paint Works Challenge Photo

My Version Submitted for the Challenge.

The fun thing is that there are lots of challenges out there for artist to enter and get a little feedback.  They inspire you to paint more on a daily basis and produce work that you then can compare to your peers as they paint the same subject.  Try to find a challenge that works for you and if you are not an artist, take a little time to view the works of art submitted in the challenge and maybe even take a moment to comment on one you like.  You might find you enjoy it and artist really appreciate all input!

Here are a few of the many challenges out there.  Now go create!!

http://www.dailypaintworks.com/challenges

http://artchallengegallery.com

http://www.verdeartistchallenge.org

http://weeklyartchallenges.tumblr.com