Acrylic Artist Competition

presented by Acrylic Artist magazine

 

The deadline for this competition has passed. Winners will be notified by June 1, 2012 and will appear in an upcoming issue of Acrylic Artist magazine.

The information below is for reference only.
PRIZES
Best of Show: $500
2nd Place: $250
3rd Place: $100
4th Place: $50
Award Winners will be published and Honorable Mentions’ names will be listed in an upcoming issue of Acrylic Artist.
Extended Deadline: Closed

 

PROSPECTUS
ELIGIBILITY
The competition is open to artists anywhere in the world. All works must be original. Compositions based on published material or other artists’ work are NOT considered original and are not eligible. Paintings executed in a workshop under another artist’s supervision or paintings based on another person’s photograph (even if copyright-free) are NOT eligible. Mixed-media entries are accepted, but the painting must be at least 50 percent acrylic and/or acrylic mediums. Employees of F+W Media, Inc., and their immediate families, are not eligible. Acrylic Artist reserves the right to reject work deemed unsuitable for publication or that does not meet above criteria. Work previously published at the time of submission to this contest in a national publication or receiving an award at a national-level exhibition is not eligible.
PREPARING YOUR ENTRY
You may enter online or you may mail all your entries in on one CD. All entries must be submitted as digital files. There is no limit to the number of entries you may submit. If entering via regular mail you must include the 2012 Acrylic Artist Entry Form. Please also include a cover sheet with your disk. Indicate the file name, title and dimensions of each entry. Please include the title of the entry in the corresponding file name on disk. File names should include only letters, numbers and spaces. The file must be saved as a JPEG in RGB color mode (not CMYK). If your work is selected as a winner, we may contact you about sending a high-res replacement. Incomplete entry forms and information sheets, and improperly named image files will be disqualified.
Fees and Payment: All entries are $20 per image. A credit card number and signature or a check or money order for the required jury fee (in U.S. funds, drawn on a U.S. bank) must accompany your entry. There will be a $20 charge for all returned checks or declined credit cards. Credit cards will be charged within 90 days of contest deadline. Charges will appear on your credit card statement as “F+W contests.”
Materials: CDs will not be returned (so have a duplicate made for your own files). Acrylic Artist will not be responsible for the loss, damage or return of any CDs submitted to the competition.

 

 

DEADLINE
Entries must be submitted online or postmarked no later than 11:59 p.m. EST, February 13, 2012.
JUDGING
Entries will be prejudged and then finalists will be chosen by the magazine staff. All properly prepared entries will be viewed and judged. The decision of the jurors is final.
NOTIFICATION
All winners will be notified by June 1, 2012. The results will not otherwise be made public until they are published in and upcoming issue of Acrylic Artist.

 

 

 


26 Responses to Acrylic Artist Competition

  1. Clare E says:
    February 13, 2012 at 10:20 pm

    Hi. I’m from England and wish to pay on my VISA debit card (this is not a credit card) – is this possible? Also, is it ok to send a watermarked/copyright image? Many thanks

  2. SusanStewart says:
    February 3, 2012 at 12:08 am

    I need help!

    I entered the competition but did not name my files correctly. Can I go back in and fix this?

    Thank you,
    Susan

    • timd says:
      February 3, 2012 at 8:10 pm

      Susan,

      If you have submitted the entry already, you will need to send an email to: art-competition@fwmedia.com and our team will help you rename the files. If they are still in draft, you may go back to http://www.wizehive.com/apps/acrylicartistcompetition and rename them yourself.

      Good luck.

      • SusanStewart says:
        February 13, 2012 at 12:20 am

        Tomorrow is the deadline so I’m hoping I can get a quick answer. I received no answer to the three emails I sent to the address above asking for help changing my file name. Now I’m wondering if my file format is acceptable. I used the name of the artwork as the filename for the JPG and the same thing on the entry form. For example: Carousel Horse.jpg and Carousel Horse on the entry form.

        Thank you for your help,

        Susan

        Also, I love the Acrylic Artist magazine! I’m hoping I will be able to subscribe to it soon so I don’t miss an edition.

        • taraj says:
          February 13, 2012 at 4:44 pm

          Hello,
          We apologize for the delay in response. I have reviewed your entries. The format is correct and the file names are appropriate. Your entries have been submitted properly. Once again, we are sorry for the delay and wish you the best in this competition.

  3. Dennis42 says:
    January 28, 2012 at 1:33 pm

    You reference Acrylic

  4. jfrimberger says:
    January 25, 2012 at 5:25 pm

    Hi. I am new to entering competitions and I have a question. May I enter the same painting in more than one competition? For example The Artist’s Magazine Annual Art Competition as well as the Acrylic Artist’s Competition?

    • timd says:
      January 27, 2012 at 11:47 pm

      Welcome to the competition world. Yes, you can enter the same piece in both competitions as long as it is original, hasn’t won another competition, or has been published.

      Good luck.

  5. Chris says:
    January 21, 2012 at 7:06 pm

    It says somewhere that we can view the entries after we enter the competition, however I cannot find a link to that anywhere. Can you tell me where to go to see the entries? Thanks

  6. terry218 says:
    January 21, 2012 at 5:17 pm

    I am trying to enter this competition and I cannot see where to upload my picture. I did get the required flash but there is no button to click on to upload. Is there something I am not seeing or how should I do this?

  7. robertsloan2 says:
    January 10, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    Question – would using an acrylic based sanded pastel primer such as Art Spectrum Colourfix Primer or the colored Derivan acrylic primers or texture gesso count as Acrylic?

    I had an idea some time ago when I bought all the Art Spectrum Colourfix primers to save money and have an assortment of surface colors, of doing a painting with the primers as my palette. I could easily do Mixed Media that way too – add some finishing strokes in pastel on a very pastel-friendly surface, wash it off if I didn’t like it and have the “acrylic primers” painting intact.

    Maybe someone else who has an assortment of the colored primers will do this, or I’ll wind up with a windfall and pick up a few of them locally to paint with. I could always do it with two if I was willing to work monochrome, or just get black and white but tint them with tube acrylics.

    • taraj says:
      January 17, 2012 at 6:27 pm

      Using an acrylic based sanded pastel primer such as Art Spectrum Colourfix Primer or the colored Derivan acrylic primers or texture gesso would count as Acrylic if the paint on top is acrylic; a lot of artists use acrylic gesso as an underpainting for oil or pastel. I would say that if the proportion of acrylic is more than 40 percent, then we could classify it as acrylic.

  8. chishomaas says:
    November 23, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    Do you have requirements for image size of entries when entering on line?

  9. EJFlynn says:
    November 23, 2011 at 12:58 am

    I work with Acrylic Inks. Does this qualify?

  10. crswatton says:
    November 15, 2011 at 2:49 pm

    Is this the right format for the file names?–

    Title_1_Artist_Name

    Title_2_Artist_Name

    Thanks,
    Cecilia

  11. paintmore says:
    November 12, 2011 at 2:55 am

    Jessica, thank you for the clarification.

  12. Jessica says:
    November 10, 2011 at 8:28 pm

    Sorry for the confusion. To clarify, that phrase refers to the individual painting, not the artist’s medium of choice. Best of luck to you!

  13. paintmore says:
    November 10, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    Could you please explain your definition of: as long as acrylic is your primary medium? Does that mean you have to paint all of your paintings mainly with acrylics or does that mean that the painting you enter into the contest has to be done mainly with acrylics? I usually paint with watercolor, sometimes with oil, and sometimes with acrylic. I also draw with graphite and am trying to learn to draw with ink. Your definition of “acrylic is your primary medium” would make this less ambiguous.

    Thank you.

    • blvnmj says:
      November 25, 2011 at 7:11 am

      “Mixed-media entries are accepted, but the painting must be at least 50 percent acrylic and/or acrylic mediums.” That comes from the Eligibility paragraph. Sounds like the painting itself needs to be mostly acrylic.

    • robertsloan2 says:
      January 10, 2012 at 3:47 pm

      Agree – they mean the ones you enter. Not what else you paint and don’t enter. I work mostly in pastels and received my link to this contest in the Pastel Journal newsletter. “We noticed many pastelists also work in acrylic so here’s a link to a contest you might like.”

      So it’s just the painting or paintings you choose to enter. If I used acrylics and combined them with acrylic based sanded pastel ground and threw pastel accents on it, the painting would be more than 50% acrylic if I limited the accents and let half the picture show through as painted in acrylic. It would be mixed media and I’d be playing with textures, it might come out well and would be as likely to win as if I’d just used my acrylics.

      I also noticed no size limits on the original painting, just the file dimensions suggestion. So I’m thinking I might do an acrylic ACEO for the contest as easily as a large painting.

      The lovely thing about acrylics is that they’re the Grand Mimic of all mediums. If you like watercolor and want to use techniques you worked out in watercolor, thin your acrylics to and past the point of ink consistency and paint as if they’re watercolor that can’t be rewetted. If you want wet in wet watercolor-like techniques, soak your paper and keep it wet, work fast and treat it as if you can’t rework it. That might give it beautiful freshness anyway.

      Wet on dry or dry brushing watercolor techniques work the same in thinned acrylics. You can even use retarder medium in thinning them out so you have a bit more time before they dry for wet in wet work. That would be playing to your strengths as a painter. If looking at the finished painting, everyone including you thinks that’s a watercolor and couldn’t be acrylic, you could prove it by slicing a swatch sample off a preliminary sketch to include with the CD so they can see that yep, it’s waterproof instead of rewettable and it is, actually, acrylics.

      Same thing with oils. Some classical oils techniques can work in acrylics if you’re getting happy with mediums to recreate the effects, whether it’s impasto gel or glazes with very little paint and lots of gloss medium over a perfectly painted grisaille.

      It’s too bad I don’t have my collection of 20 acrylic based Art Spectrum Colourfix sanded pastel primers, or even the black and white ones. I have often wanted to do a complete underpainting by using multiple colors of that primer instead of just priming watercolor paper and I’ll bet they would consider it an acrylic painting if I did the painting more finished and limited the pasteling to a few accents in the focal area.

      I can’t do it for this contest because I moved across the country last summer and some of my supplies are still in storage waiting to be sent. But I’m going to hang on to that idea for future contests. If it works for an underpainting, it’ll work for a painting and I love the texture of those primers.

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