(From the SW Chronicle ---as always)
The Art Forgery Competition Winners
It is with great excitement that I am here to announce the Finalists of the SmallWorlds Art Forgery Competition!
As you all saw for yourselves, the standard of entries was extremely high, and I was very relieved that the winners were decided by public vote. Quite honestly I feel that the task of choosing the final three would have been been beyond me!
Congratulations to all entrants in the competition. This was a wonderful way to showcase the incredible artistic talent we have here in SmallWorlds. And of course a very special congratulations goes to our three Citizens Choice Award winners in the three entry categories, and especially to the winner of the Supreme Award, the art forger who received the most votes overall.
Our three category winners receive 5000 Gold each, and the winner of the most overall votes will walk away with an additional 8000 Gold!
So without further ado, the winners are...
Best Landscape: Tunococ Coconut - "Stairway to Paradise"
Tunococ chose a work painted by one of Americas most collected living artists, Thomas Kinkade, known as the 'painter of light'. As you can see, the style employed by Kinkade did provide quite a challenge for Tunococ-the-art-forger, but he met the challenge admirably, and his forgery is simply breathtaking.
I have been trying for the past two days to catch up with Tunococ to interview him about his win, but sadly I have been unable to connect with him before our publication deadline, thus no picture of he and I with his winning entry! I shall however be interviewing him indepth for a soon to be published Art Lovers article, so do watch the Chronicle for that story, coming soon.
Voting Statistics - Landscape Category
Best Portrait: Sleiya Ajieh - "Girl with Pearl Earring"
The original artist, Jan Vermeer painted this wonderful piece in 1665. In more recent times, 'Girl with Pearl Earring' has been immortalized in a movie starring Scarlett Johanssen. When I spoke with Sleiya,as you can imagine she was thrilled with her win! She lives in Jakarta, Indonesia, and has been playing SmallWorlds since June 2009.
She works as a designer in RL, and loves to do digital drawing. "Playing SW gives me the chance to do 'free illustration painting' and I am totally loving it". We talked a little about her entry and Sleiya shared with me "...this portrait is famous; it looks simple at first, but turns out very difficult to forge!" She spent around 5 hours completing the piece. "It was an intriguing name for an art competition - 'forgery', it means that you will have to redraw it perfectly, just as the master did their piece, and no one should be able to recognize it as redrawing, It was really challenging, I was excited! And moreover seeing so many good forged entries in the forum, I was totally intimidated!" Well we're so glad you got over your intimidation and submitted your wonderful entry Sleiya - many congratulations! I'll be doing a more indepth interview with Sleiya which will feature in the Art Lovers section over the next few weeks. Her entry can be seen here, at United Artists gallery.
Voting Statistics - Portrait/Face Category
Best Modern / Abstract: Lea Wee - "The Persistence of Memory"
Lea's first response to me was "Wow!!! Thanks to EVERYONE who voted for me. I am truly amazed! I hadn't even planned on entering so my entry was VERY last minute!" Lea lives in Canton Ohio and has been playing SW for around 2 months. "How long I take on each piece is often dependent on how needy my almost 2 year old is! I think I finished this one in about 6 hrs total due to the deadline"
I asked Lea what she found most challenging when completing her entry. "How best to use my paint. I get very frustrated when I have to sacrifice details in one part in order to detail something else. This actually happened in this one. If you look closely, there is nothing supporting the grey/white object where the ripple is located." I really enjoyed meeting Lea and will look forward to sharing more of our chat with you when I publish a more in-depth interview with her soon.
Voting Statistics - Modern/Abstract Category
Winner of the Citizens Choice Supreme Award - Lea Wee!Lea's entry "The Persistence of Memory" received the most citizen choice votes - with a total of 570 votes! Lea therefore receives the coveted Citizens Choice Supreme Award, and has been awarded a further 8000 gold, on top of the 5000 gold she received as a finalist! Congratulations Lea! Her winning entry can be seen at Inspiration Alley. I understand from Lea that she is planning to auction her painting sometime soon - keep an eye on the forums!
Thanks again to all entrants!
Well there you have it citizens - its the end of the SmallWorlds Art Forgery competition.. and what a wonderful competition its been. I don't know about you but I feel that I've had quite the art education! Its been really exciting for us here at SWHQ to once again witness the outpouring of talent contained within the SW community. Thank you once again to ALL entrants - it was all of your participation that made this competition great!
~ Honesty Blaize
PS: Don't forget - Vote for SmallWorlds in the Social Computing category (we're a finalist in the Adobe Max Awards and we need your vote!)...and you and your friends can vote as many times as you like!
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Topic: 9/30/2009 The Art Forgery Competition Winners (Read 4350 times)