Congratulations to the winner of this contest, Phyllis Harris!! You will receive a copy of this card in the mail in a few days. Blank on the inside. Back has text shown on bottom - minus the copyright notice, which I forgot until after I printed it. You can tell eveyone I said so, Phyllis. I'm sure they're interested. ;) The picture is actually printed upside down, not how it's shown to allow for it being center folded. Ya-a-a-ay, Phyllis! I hope you'll like it. Thank you for your contribution to helping me get the final version of this finished. I listened to your opinion. I needed another set of eyes to take a fresh look at it and you very nicely responded. And it won Second Prize at the Fine Art America contest yesterday, June 3, 2013. So now you can tell that to whomever you'd like, too. Maybe that's a little more interesting. Let's hope so. :))

This is what people who came here from my Facebook page saw:

Vote and win a prize. Open to all. Randomly selected winner gets a free blank note card with a picture of this dragon on it. All you have to do is leave a comment saying which version of these is your favorite and why.

Vote for which one you like best. Vote by number. If you like more than one
equally, vote that way by saying what you think. Enter your votes as a 
comment below.

7) This and the next one were added a day later. I think I like this the best. It's always good to look away for awhile. I took out the rainbow colors in the shamrock. I seemed too busy this AM with the rainbow in it in addition to being in the dragon's belly. I always see the overall appearance better when I break for a day or more and get a fresh look.

8) Everything's the same  as #7, except 2 changes. Lighter color and reticulation, aka, it looks speckled.

Same as #2, except heavier eye feature.

Same as #1, except lighter eye feature

No Eye Feature, Stronger Colors Than #4.

No Eye Feature, Lighter Colors than #3

Reticulated, i.e., it looks like it's speckled. Same as #6, except heavier, or stronger colors. 

Same as #5, except paler colors.

I have assigned Merit Awards as sole juror to artists who entered their work in my Fun Fantasy Fine Art America contest. Public voting ended October 31, 2012. Thanks to all for your participation! Here are the winners:

I've won First Prize in the Fine Art America contest Witches Wicca and all things Pagan! Thanks to all who voted for my artwork. The original is a large, 26" by 26" acrylic painting on canvas entitled The Alchemists. Many print versions of it are available here. Click on the picture at left to see it as a greeting card.

Thanks also to Lisa Anne Riley for creating and administering this contest. Here's . . .

. . .where you can purchase it as a print on metal, canvas, paper and other media, or a greeting card. It offers several framing options.

Here's the listing for my winning entry at . . .

. . . and the other place winners.

Here's a link to . . .

where my winning entry is shown.

The Troy, NY Bella Vita Fresco voting is now open to email votes. Please vote! For anyone wishing to vote, you can email your vote to Andrea Daley at [email protected]. You can only vote once.

Here’s the info on my Fresco in downtown Troy.

Joyce Jackson -Fresco #14

Email your vote by September 8th with the following information:

Fresco #:
Your name:
Email address:
Phone #:

Indicate whether you would like to get emails on the Bell Vita Fresco Project.

Please forward this blog post URL to all your friends & family and ask them
to vote. I didn’t do much about getting votes early on. Troy is so far from me, it was difficult and very tiring to continue driving there. I didn’t go there to solicit votes, which other artists who live closer were able to do. Maybe this will boost my numbers a little, up from zero anyway. LOL These contests are never fair, but a good effort was made to make this one fair.

See my early test version here:

http://www.artbyjoycejackson.com/bella-vita.html

Here’s my finished version. The person who took the photo cropped off the entire left side, so it’s hidden. I think it looked better before she cropped it. If
I’d been asked permission, I would have said no, don’t crop it. Also it looks
more faded than it actually is. It really looks a lot better in real life, but this will have to do.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/79188077@N05/7160284800/in/set-72157629640098174

To see more, find out more about the Bella Vita project, Troy, NY. If you want to see mine in person, last I knew it was at Kayla’s Kitchen 39 Hill St., Troy, NY.

Thanks for voting!

Here's a video of us artists creating our frescos as participants in the Bella Vita project in Troy, NY, on May 5, 2012. Details in my 2 earlier posts. A peek at just some of the amazing artwork at various stages as it's being created.  I'm the one with the Italian T-shirt, in about 1 minute.

This was such a tremendous amount of work, I can't leave it out. The drawing known as the "cartoon" was an integral part of the success of the finished fresco.