Bethany's Favorite Art

This is what happens when it snows while trees are still dumping their leaves:

While I appreciate nature's enthusiasm for the Christmas season, even I think it's rather overeager this year. It reminds me of stores, always rushing from straight from Halloween to Christmas decor without pause for Thanksgiving.

It seems a bit odd to still be discussing art from a fall competition, but I'm going to do it anyway!

Jesus

(The artist is posing with his painting here - he's not part of it.)

This incredible oil painting drew lots of people's attention at ArtPrize. Nobody living knows what Jesus looks like, yet I think nearly everybody would know who this was supposed to be even if it wasn't titled. I find the various artistic renderings of Jesus fascinating, and I think this artist did an amazing job. His painting style is superb, from the meticulously detailed face to the flowy/ smoky effect on his head covering. Mom said that while walking around and viewing Jesus at various distances and angles, his eyes seemed always to be looking right at her. 

Watchin' me, watchin' you

I was drawn to this first of all because it reminds me of our neighborhood deer, which often stroll around in broad daylight. (We know this all too well: Nala goes ballistic any time she catches sight of them.) The deer and forest depicted here are actually ones the artist observed while hiking in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I assume she took a photo and used this as the reference for this pen and ink masterpiece. She's captured the detail of the trees (how can anyone have the patience for all those tiny needles?!) and the complex shadows beautifully. 

Monster Menagerie
Several entries this year depicted not-so-scary monsters. Monsters Go was back again, where the artist used kids' monster drawings as inspiration for his own illustrations. As much as I like them, I also really appreciated this other artist's imagined monsters. He has been using ink and watercolor to create one monster a day for the past 5 years. He displayed a collection of 50 of his favorites for ArtPrize.

According to Mom, the 50 little creations were neatly organized on the 4 sides of a large supportive pillar. Here's one side of it: 

And here are a few close-ups of my favorites:

Michigan Monsters

Waffle Monster

Boulder Monster

Beachball Monster

Dare to Dream Big

I don't really think this one needs much explanation. As you can see from the posing artist, these bronze sculptures are quite large. And they were ok to touch, which people were quite eager to do.

The artist's inspiration was his cat Grayboy, who really does seem to think he's a lion. Here he is posing with a scaled-down model of the sculpture:

Amethyst Awakening
Last but definitely not least is this spectacular mixed media entry of a tranquil lakeshore. This acrylic painting has amethyst crystals embedded all over it, with the largest and thickest chunks at the bottom, obviously.

They give it incredible texture and sparkle.

I found the artist's explanation of this entry quite interesting too, so here it is:

Way to think outside the box, Gina. I'd love to see some of her other creations.

That's it for the ArtPrize posts for this decade! We hope you enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed putting them together. 

Unfortunately, I'm out of time for today, but there are a couple of HI2-themed posts in the works! Until later!