Big Red Dot!

My friend Denise Rose, a fellow blogger and wonderful artist, was at the American Impressionist Show in Indianapolis this weekend and e-mailed me this photo she took! She said “there’s a big red dot next to your painting!” Thank you Denise for taking this photo and sending me the image. What a nice surprise!

While I have entered quite a few contests with my paintings, and gotten into a few, this is the first time my painting has actually sold during the show. How nice to be expecting a check in the mail. And it’s nice not to have to pay the return shipping too.

I go back and forth on whether or not I want to enter art competitions. It takes time and money, and energy. One thing I’ve learned is that it’s helpful to know what kinds of paintings might be accepted into a competition. These days you can easily do some research online and see the paintings that were accepted into the show the year before. For example the Greenhouse Gallery Salon generally accepts paintings that are fairly realistic. Some very realistic. I have gotten paintings into the American Impressionist Society’s annual competition twice now and the word “impressionistic” is a big clue to what they are looking for. I entered a competition here in Houston a few months ago and I should have know, it was more geared towards abstract and very contemporary. While “contemporary” has varied definitions, obviously what I thought was contemporary about the paintings I entered did not appeal to the judges of this local show. But getting my paintings into a big national show like the AIS show makes those rejections a lot easier to take. Thank goodness!

So this painting is off to a new home. I usually know where my paintings end up, but sometimes when they are sold through another party I never know. Not that I’m complaining.