2010 Illinois State Fair Professional Art Exhibition

I am so THRILLED to say that I won first place in the Drawing and Graphics category at this years State Fair Prof. Art Exhibit!

Here I am in front of the one that garnered the prize ("Disheveled Daisies" courtesy of the collection of J. Williams).

I also have another scratchboard piece that was accepted into the fair, "Bearded Beauties".  How exciting is that?

Yesterday we made the trip out to the fair so I could have a look at all of the talent that the art exhibition has to offer.  I took a few snapshots and thought I would post some of the ones that caught my eye.

I absolutely loved the second place winner's artwork (in our category) and you can see it pictured above and I've also included a closer up look at it below:

It's called "Five Elements Improvisation, III" and it was created by Richard Finch of Bloomington, IL.  What an amazingly detailed work.  I particularly love the hardanger lace in the piece.  It must have taken him almost as long (if not longer) to draw it as it took for the lace to have been made.

Next is something that just blew me away.  In the same category but in the Amateur section of the exhibition I was stunned to see that the first place winner was also a scratch artist:

I didn't see a title on this one but it's obviously a tiger and was created by Kailey Wilmarth of Chatham, IL.  It was scratched on gold metallic scratchboard rather than the kind I use which has a white clay layer instead of the gold.  Beautiful work Kailey!

Then the last thing I want to show you is this painting that is the first thing you see when you walk into the exhibition building.

My photo of it is just terrible but you can see it better here at the artist's website.

It's called "The Singing Bone" and it's by Amanda Greive of Springfield, IL.  It won first place in the Painting category in the Professional Art section.

Her work is amazing and I would love to know the story behind this work as it sure seems like there's a good one that should go with it.

This year's professional art and amateur exhibitions are full of talent and you will certainly miss out on viewing some great artwork if you don't make it to this wonderful venue in the Artisans building at the fair this year.  I hope you can go and if you do I would love to hear your thoughts on what you saw.