some factors that are unique to each
category. To this mix of criteria,
there are considerations that are
by nature more subjective, such as
“originality of concept.”
We asked each of our jurors to
tell us more about the qualities that
factored into their pursuit of prize-
winners and what advice they’d offer
to artists for making a painting that
stands out in the crowd.Portrait & Figure
In jurying the Portrait & Figure cat-
egory, Nguyen says, “I was attractedto entries that delivered a genuine feeling of emotion
rather than just a surface representation of the subject.”
He offers these additional tips for capturing the power of
the human subject:- “Demonstrate knowledge of human anatomy. With
knowledge of anatomy, you can construct a head
with good proportions, and you can even change the
model’s expression based on your understanding of
the way facial muscles work. Mastery of anatomy can
come both from studying books and online resources,
and from painting and drawing from life as much as
you can.” - “Practice drawing hands. Many people focus on the
head, but hands can portray almost as much emotion
as a face; a poor rendering of the hands can under-
mine the entire portrait.”
Just Let it Be
(20x28)
by Kathy
Hildebrandt
ArtistsNetwork.com 25