top of page

3rd Annual Animal Portraiture Open, International Art Competition


Deadline for Entries: December 20, 2024


Art by last year's Best in Show, E.C. Kanko, portrait of a hound dog
Art by last year's Best in Show, E.C. Kanko

Submit your animal portraits! Any sort of animal is eligible. We are looking for portraits of animals, wildlife, pets, farm animals, and the like.


  • All animals welcome

  • 2D and 3D artwork, sculpture, and photography

  • Any style and genre as long it is an animal portrait

  • We love it when an animal portrait visually communicates something about the animal's personality


All entries must be the original artwork of the submitting artist.


We embrace realism as fully as abstraction. We love loose brush strokes as much as highly detailed photographs. We live for finely crafted ceramics as much as mixed media experiments. We. Love. Art.


We are looking for 2D and 3D artwork, sculpture, and photography that falls into a variety of art style and genre categories: Abstraction, Portraiture, Surrealism, Realism, Pop Art, Expressionism, Assemblage, and more! Our mission is to promote wildlife and animal art in both non-traditional and traditional forms. We exist to honor, promote, and uplift it.


As always, art may include more than just animals and insects. Feel free to incorporate humans, objects, landscapes, shapes, space, or anything else. The work just needs to fit the theme, and the focus needs to be on the animal(s).


Be as literal or as creative with the theme as you like. Originality is one of the components we use to score entries.


CATEGORIES


Be as accurate as you can with the category.* Category selection helps the judges quickly identify what they are looking at and assess a work appropriately.


  • Drawing and Pastels

  • Mixed Media

  • Painting

  • Photography

  • Printmaking

  • Sculpture

  • Other Media


*If you aren't sure what the best category is, use Other Media.

*If you are submitting pieces in different categories as one entry, use Other Media.


It's okay if something is put into the wrong category on accident. It happens. It will not negatively impact your entry.


AWARDS


Best in Show ($350 cash award) Overall Runner Up ($100 cash award) Artivism Award ($50)

Overall Honorable Mentions

Finalists


Best in Show receives $350 cash award and promotion on the following: Art Week, Wild Heart Gallery’s (WHG's) growing social media and other online media channels, WHG's eNewsletter, and WHG's home page (for duration of the exhibition).


Overall Runner Up receives $100 cash award and promotion on Wild Heart Gallery’s (WHG's) growing social media/other online media channels and WHG's eNewsletter and inclusion in a virtual group exhibition that lasts at least one month.


Artivism Award receives $50 cash award and promotion on Wild Heart Gallery’s (WHG's) growing social media/other online media channels and WHG's eNewsletter and inclusion in a virtual group exhibition that lasts at least one month.


All award recipients receive promotion on Wild Heart Gallery’s (WHG's) growing social media/other online media channels and WHG's eNewsletter and inclusion in a virtual group exhibition that lasts at least one month. All award recipients also receive an award certificate, emailed as a PDF to the email address used for the submission process.


IMPORTANT DATES


Deadline for Entries: December 20, 2024

Notification of Jury Results: January 3, 2025

Virtual Show Dates: January 2025


JURORS


Sarah Soward, Sharon Eisley, and guest juror TBA



ENTRY INSTRUCTIONS


All entries must be the original artwork of the submitting artist.

Entries will be evaluated based on originality, technique, skill, relevance to theme, and quality of work. Please submit a quality image of the work for jurying. We can't review blurry art.

Artwork entered in our competitions is not required to be for sale. Any inquiries about a piece will be directed to the artist. We do not take any commission.


Artwork must not have been included in one of our previous shows.


Policy: No nudity (private parts must be covered), no profanity, no animal cruelty, no gore, and no political artwork will be accepted for jury. Topics of animal conservation and environmental protection are not considered political for the purposes of Wild Heart Gallery.

IMAGE REQUIREMENTS


You may submit up to 2 images.

*For sculpture entries only, you may submit up to 3 additional views per piece. *For photographs, please note the make and model of the camera used and whether is film or digital.

  • Accepted File Types: JPG, PNG, GIF

  • Maximum File Size: 5 MB

  • Minumum File Size: 100 KB

  • Minimum Image Width or Height: 1000 px

This is an art competition. Only the award recipients will be in the online group exhibition.

Artwork for the exhibition will be selected by industry professionals, referred to as jurors. The jurors will vote based on the number of entries, criteria for this event (theme), originality, technique, skill, and quality of work.



Entry Fees (non-refundable):

$15 for 1-2 images


Best in Show receives $300 cash award and promotion on the following: Art Week, Wild Heart Gallery’s (WHG's) growing social media and other online media channels, WHG's eNewsletter, and WHG's home page (for duration of the exhibition).


Best Wild Cat Art and Best Domestic Cat Art each receives $100 cash award and promotion on Wild Heart Gallery’s (WHG's) growing social media/other online media channels and WHG's eNewsletter and inclusion in a virtual group exhibition that lasts at least one month.


Artivism Award receives $50 cash award and promotion on Wild Heart Gallery’s (WHG's) growing social media/other online media channels and WHG's eNewsletter and inclusion in a virtual group exhibition that lasts at least one month.


All award recipients receive promotion on Wild Heart Gallery’s (WHG's) growing social media/other online media channels and WHG's eNewsletter and inclusion in a virtual group exhibition that lasts at least one month. All award recipients also receive an award certificate, emailed as a PDF to the email address used for the submission process.


EntryThingy is our art competition app of choice for Wild Heart Gallery. Please login or sign up below to apply to this open call for art. Please make sure to enter the correct exhibition. We often have multiple competitions running at one time.


All dollar amount listed are in USD.


TERMS OF ENTRY FOR ENTRANTS

Artist Entry Requirements:
  • Competitions are open to all artists age 18 or older

  • Entries must follow each individual competition theme

  • Each piece must be an original or a sold original

  • Files must be in JPG, GIF, or PNG format

  • Files may not exceed 5MB

  • Artwork images must be photographed in a professional manner: cropped, no glare, no frames, no watermarks. Image quality really makes a difference.

  • For digital art, photography is not necessary; a JPG file of the digital artwork is preferred

  • Not mandatory, but it is preferred that artwork be completed within the last 2 years

  • Artwork must not have been included in Wild Heart Gallery's shows previously.

  • Entry fee based on the competition

  • Entry fees are non-refundable. No exceptions


Jury Selection:

Jury Selection begins within 7 days after final entry date and ends within 15 days after final entry date.

Award recipients are the entered into an online group award exhibition that is published at a date sometime after final entry date.

The Jurors and Jury Process:

The Juror(s) of the art competition are art industry professionals.

There are several criteria for selection for the award exhibition. These include relevance to the theme, appropriate medium, originality, quality of work, technique, and technical skill. The goal is to have a cohesive, high quality virtual art exhibition that embraces various genres of animal and wildlife art. To make the experience enjoyable and worthwhile to artists, visitors, and more, we strive to select and display the artwork that best represents animal and wildlife art today. Please remember that this is a competition; only the best art will be selected for exhibition. Not all art that was entered will be included.

Copyright:

The artist retains all copyrights to their artwork without exception.


Click or tap the button below to access the entry form and submit your application.



54 views

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page