Art competition updates
1: Heroes Dutch Comic-con.
i saw that the instagram page of Heroes comic-con posted about artists handing in artwork with a chance to have it displayed in their gallery section, and i had just made an art nouveau inspired watercolor painting of my favorite tv show characters. so, at 4 in the morning i decided to submit it just for fun, not expecting much.
i had to hand in the lineart version, and a colored version, so these were the 2 photos i attached in my email:
Now i will say the execution of this piece was not the best, my lineart was ok but i accidentally didn’t use a waterproof marker, making it hard to fill in the lines with watercolour to get a clean look. but nevertheless a month later i got an email saying i would be featured in the interactive area in the gallery!
it was really cool seeing my art displayed in a public ara and getting compliments on it, and gave me a lot of confidence to continue with art after that.
here are some pictures of the interactive exhibition:
2: Hashtag Kalakar worldwide art competition.
this is my most recent competition i joined, and am still currently (september 2025) working on.
my original idea for this was to do a series of 5 paintings that together told a story but could be displayed seperately, however i applied very last minute and only had two months to complete it, which i realized is not possible.
my original idea was to showcase how women were portrayed in western classical art, specifically how in most paintings they fall into 5 main categories. i wanted to depict these categories in a positive light, while also making fun of this concept.
the 5 paintings would be called: Child, Whore, Wife, Witch, and Muse.
the paintings Child and Whore would depict 2 opposites of a spectrum, one the innocent woman that fully submits and relies of the man, often depicted as happy in this role, whereas Whore depicts the opposite. a woman who has detached herself from men, yet is often depicted still as needing a mans touch/grace. she represents a struggle that a man has to overcome, as her sexuality, while enticing, is ‘corrupting’ of his morality.
similarly the paintings Wife and Witch would also draw a similar parallel. the wife is a wise and motherly woman, often shown in classical paintings as an accessory and sign of success to the man.
the witch however is a less clear category, as anything that didn’t service men/people in more privileged positions was condemned for being demonic. this was often connected to racism and discrimination against other ethnic groups, (witches being depicted with long hooked noses and pointy hats is connected to the negative depictions of Jews in Europe. the pointy hats reference the Judenhut, a cone shaped hat, that Jewish people were required to wear in Europe in the years 1215<.)
in conclusion the painting Witch would represent the ‘‘other’’. its the people that the men did not have control over and therefore depicted as immoral and demonic, and as i would be depicting women it would represent the ones that did not go along with societal norms and were therefore shunned from society.
and finally we have muse. the muse has no counterpart. she is a woman who has captured the interest of a man and is often the only one who gets treated/painted with a bit of dignity amd respect, making her seperate from the other catagories.
i made a few sketches originally and decided to start working on my first one, wife, which i still hope to hand in for the competition. below you can see my process.
