Double Winner at Disney!!

I was very excited to win two awards at the Florida Chalk Artists Association event (Disney Festival of the Masters held every fall at Downtown Disney)!  I was surprised to win "Artist's Choice" from all my peers in the FCAA.  Plus I won the "Best Reproduction of an American Master".  My art was by Rick Timmons.  I found his website on the internet, and really wanted to do an animal picture, and he does a lot of horses.  Of all his works, I like this one best, and it worked well for the 7' x 7' square size we had to work with.  Because it was a 2 1/2 day event, I wanted to make sure I picked something with a lot of detail, and this one had it!

I also received my Maestre Certification from the FCAA. This took about 3 years for me to accomplish.  It requires that you participate as a solo artist in at least 15 events, win an award at Disney, win an award with 50+ artists, plus leading a workshop and also writing about street painting.

Many of my friends in the group won awards, also (Betty Dominguez, Jamie Schwerstein, Carolyn Shultz, among others).  Go to the FCAA website to see pictures of most of the winners.  The high school teams impress me every year, too!  Lots of talent!

Thanks, Minnie!

Feast of Little Italy 2011

 A traditional Italian masterpiece was the inspiration for this detail from a painting by Antonio da Correggio.  I got a lot done on Saturday at the Feast of Little Italy in Abacoa Town Center in Jupiter.  This was my first year at this festival, and it was great!  The only downside was the heavy rain that came down on Saturday night.  It started as we were pulling the plastic over the work, around 6:30pm, and was so wet that we couldn't really seal it with the duct tape fast enough.  Then a fence fell on the plastic, ripping a hole in the middle which allowed more water to damage the work.

It took about 3 hours to dry out the piece and reconstruct the damaged areas on Sunday morning.  I pushed hard to finish by sundown, and just made it (even with the time change).  The best thing was all the wonderful comments from viewers, with some saying that it was so beautiful, they were almost moved to tears.  This is what art is all about - to evoke strong emotions in the viewers!