Art Battle

Maws eatery hosted another Art Battle recently. Unfortunatley, I can't claim victory, (I didn't even get voted into the final round...), but it's a bit of a rush to start and finish a whole canvas painting in only 20 minutes with a crowd of people watching. The evening was well attended, and the organizers sort of corral the crowd into walking around in a counterclockwise manner. While painting, I felt like there were people very close up in my space, and it's interesting to paint while hearing comments from people. This was the third kind of event that I've done like this, and I think it does kind of get easier each time in terms of nervousness (however the first time I did it I came in second place... so maybe there's something to going in totally fresh). The art battle is set up so that there are two rounds with 6 different artists each round, and then patrons vote on who should move onto the final round. Only two artists from each round move on, so the final round has four artists. It's inspiring to see what people can paint in only 20 minutes, and all the variety that comes off the brushes. The city finals are being hosted in June again at Maws, and the winner of that gets to go onto to an art battle with finalists from across the country. Here is a picture of the set up before it started - sorry for the blurryness.