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Buddy’s on the Chopping Block !

October 17, 2015/ Dave Messing / Advice & Art Tips / 1 comment

When you enter a piece of artwork into a juried show you must remember that juried art shows are relative. Your art piece is judged worthy or not according to the other pieces being considered. BEST IN SHOW isn’t the “best” in the world … It is the “best ” in the “show”… and all of that is in the opinion of the juror. By his or her choices the juror sets the mood and the over all look of the show . It is my quest to require that all jurors submit at least one of their own art pieces in the show. To me this validates the credibility of the person jurying everyone’s art.

Let’s say you wanted to do an oil of your little dog “Buddy”. It turned out pretty good and you decide to try to put it in a juried art show.

Wow !
Now little Buddy is on the chopping block … Color, balance, layout, alignment, proportion, anatomy, perspective, technique, background, tangents, scale, substrate, presentation, detail, texture, brush stroke, subject, focus, cropping, mood, method, effects, abstraction, realism, correctness, finish, focus, framing … And this is just some of the things that run thru the mind of the art jurist as he/she wields the cleaver on the body of artwork that is on the chopping block. All the while you sit at home wondering what side of the cleaver will little “Buddy” land.

Let’s say there are 150 entries in the art show but only room to show 100 pieces .
Soon 50 emails, letters or postcards are sent out to the artists thanking them for their participation but asking that they please come back and pick up their “rejected” artwork. So relative to all the entries “Buddy” is still in the show.

Now there are usually 7 to 10 awards. The lighting, cropping, use of the media, anatomy, and mood of Buddy’s portrait is almost perfect and that, in the jurors opinion, puts him in the top 10 ! There is a slight tangent in the background but still this painting is very, very good.

The “Best in Show” is a stunning still life that is just about perfect in every way.

“First Place ” is a beautiful lake scene. It has a bit of a scale problem as where a man is standing in the painting – he is too big relative to the cabin in the scene.

“Second Place” is a well lit anatomically excellent portrait. Even though the jurist has no idea if the likeness is accurate the technical skills apparent in this pastel are worthy of an award.

“Third Place” is a colorful wet-in-wet watercolor with beautifully long washes and wonderfully detailed with simple but accurate dry “Sumi” type brush strokes. It is decorative, floated and well framed this piece is beautiful and easily in the top four.

Unfortunately for “Buddy” his “slight tangent” keeps bumping him down the list to a “merit” or “honorable mention” . But don’t forget that Buddy’s portrait was elevated first from the 150 … then out of 100 he was picked for the top 10 … then out of those he was praised and considered worth “mentioning” and had “merit”… all in all that is “relatively” … GREAT!

This is me after jurying 150 pieces