I Won “Best Wildlife” at International Guild of Realism 2013!

I couldn’t be more excited right now!

We just returned from the 8th Annual International Guild of Realism exhibition hosted by the Tempe Center for the Arts… a beautiful museum and arts center. The four-day weekend was filled with social opportunities, workshops, and two art openings for our exhibition. It was amazing! And, I’m excited to share that my wildlife oil painting of a Black Swan Cygnet won the International “Best Wildlife” award!

It was a wonderful time getting to know more of my fellow realist artists during gallery walks and social parties. The workshops were informative and appreciated. I teach two workshops to various art groups… for this weekend, I had been asked to combine them during my workshop time:

“How To Get Your Work Into Galleries and Keep It There” and “Conservationist Tips on Protecting and Shipping Your Art.”

My workshop was last on the schedule… and, because others ran late, I had to cram 1–1/2 hours of info into 30 minute time slot. I was sad that the participants didn’t get the full benefit of the “meaty” information I had prepared but I did my best to present the highlights… perhaps next year!

I created these workshops based upon my own personal experience along with input from galleries, successful artists and museum conservationists. I began to paint in the year 2000 after a 30+ year career in marketing, advertising and graphic design where I created successful campaigns for various great companies. I like to share these workshops because I saw the need for talented artists to learn more about the business end of the Fine Art world.

Tempe Center for the Arts is an amazing architectural beauty… I’ll post a few photos for you to see how spectacular this venue is for exhibiting artists.

NEXT BLOG I’ll share some of the other paintings and the gallery exhibit itself. Stay tuned!