Countdown to the Conference

The 13th Annual Art of the Portrait Conference will open its doors to attendees in just two weeks, and I am doing my best to get everything together so that I can once again cover the event for Underpaintings.  For the first year in the Conference's history, the gathering will be held in Atlanta, a region which has always been deeply invested in portraiture, and though there are many exciting and inspirational events scheduled for the four-day get-together, the highlight, as always, will be the Portrait Exhibit and Competition.  This year's competition opened up entires to online submissions, which resulted in a greater number of entrants than ever before.  The exhibition judges, faced with such a high number of high-quality submissions, found themselves sorely taxed in narrowing down the field of competitors, and eventually decided to raise the number of finalists in the 2011 Competition to 20 works of art.  I cannot wait to see the paintings and sculptures in person when I head to Georgia later this month.

2010 PSoA Conference media presentation by Tony Pro

To celebrate the upcoming Portrait Conference I plan to post, in no particular order, the 15 works of art which were awarded this year's Certificates of Excellence.  With these works in mind, it is easy to see how difficult it was for the judges to narrow the field down to the 1% of entries which became the Finalists.  My congratulations to everyone!

Look for the first post later today!