chelydra

Hi Mum, No problemo. Since I did say at the very beginning 'don't just copy' I was thinking of leaving it off the shortlist; it's here because it's pretty good in its own right. It WAS here I should say.

Shanley

lol Chelydra (@ at not getting distracted while doing so many things!)! you mean...it's really ending? now that i got used to it?

chelydra

Damn, now I'm thinking I should have shortlisted polenta's "dinner is served"... it really is quite nice, and does funny things spacially... Oh well... too late now... If I start second-guessing myself, we'll never get out of this cavern we've dug ourselves into... Sorry polenta...

chelydra

Not to worry Shanley, at the rate I'm going it could last another week or two... but I hope not...

Qsilv

chelydra!!! you are a worse tease than any magician I've run into....
(Q reeeally begins laughing now.... and goes off in search of midnightpoet's whip...!)

(and no, I am NOT in the running!)

Qsilv

(but it IS lovely -- awe-inspiring, even -- to see that this rambly thread of over 200 posts actually contains these works, now pretty nicely assembled on just a couple pages)

Shanley

Oh yes it is! Q's right about the teasing thing, but well...spicy is spicy, and besides...we all love some suspense from time to time. (Erm....going through archives surely will have you even more undecided...Well, this is coming from someone who can't decide between two pics, let alone more than ...phew! how many entries?)

chelydra

Another round of eliminations and explanations... or maybe, as in the Oscar ceremonies, we'll kill a few hours handing our minor awards before we get to Best Picture...

Yarraki, I love your Busy Valley and I REALLY love your Connections (which reminds me of Miro and maybe Klee, and I mean REALLY reminds me of them, especially Miro).But unfortunately for you, I'm thinking that your Smiling Mark is much closer to my notion of Mild Cubism. The reason this is unfortunate is that I judge portraits VERY strictly and can't tolerate any deviation from what I look for in portraits (including cubist portraits) — as five found out the other night... So you'll have to settle for Best Newcomer award. (I'm having second thoughts already, wondering if Connections doesn't fit my criteria after all... but again you're out of luck because I have to impose a policy of ignoring my second thoughts, just to get this over with. Too bad. Connections just might have won Best Picture if I'd been a bit more on the ball five minutes ago!)

Qsliv, my respect for your art and your benign presence in the TD community is growing and growing. Your gallery is full of Mild Cubist visions... And while I draw portraits, you draw HEADS - which is a step up from portraits, according to what I was taught by my big brother and some other good art teachers. All of us, myself very much included, can learn from you and your pictures. Your "edge-on-mean" is a textbook just by itself. But your entries aren't quite on target. So you get the Most Benign Presence Award for your wisdom, humor, and artistic brilliance, and for your immense help in getting this challenge going.

Marky, if your two shortlisted entries were combined into a single picture, you'd have one masterful Mild Cubist entry. But they weren't, so you don't. What you do win, however, is the Marky Award. That's because you contribute Markyness to TD in general, and gave us a bit of Markyness here in this challenge too. (There is no generic term that covers Markyness, so far as I know.) Damn, second thoughts again, as I look at your gallery! First Attempt, Albatross, Bombed Out... Quite a body of work, collectively very much in the Mild Cubist Ballpark... Oh well, too late! Moving right along...

I think I'll post this a take a short break.

chelydra

This one is still on the ever-shrinking shortlist:
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104172

So is this:
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103584

and this:
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103991

Hmmm... Is that everyone, before we try to grapple with danila and five's many entires?

Maybe I forgot someone?

Well, if I did, I can't see where you got misplaced. So that's it, so far. These three, plus five and danila. I had thought I would judge on the basis on 'best collections' and because of that, I had assumed it would come down to five and danila. But now I'm thinking Best Picture, so it's wide open still.

chelydra

This is going to be five's contender for Best Picture:

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104256

This doesn't feel right to me, though — glancing now at her gallery, just at the pieces done during this challenge I see these:
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103919
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103853
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104092
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103994
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104113
...all of which would be strong contenders for Best Picture, and which collectively — oh well, I'll cut myself off in mid-sentence. As you may have noticed, once I get going on the subject of five's art I don't run out of steam for a long time...

So five undoubtedly gets the Best Mild Cubist Award, but that's not the Best Picture award (which she might get too, judging is still going on). It's more like Best Actress, or maybe Best Director.

Now there are about five hundred danila pictures to sort through, so I may be gone for a long while...

chelydra

Meanwhile (before I get to Danila), I'm sending Chinky home with a Most Stylish award. The seated figure is a very elegant example of something or other, but I don't think it's Mild Cubism, exactly, when I see it next to the other two it's displayed with.

MOST STYLISH AWARD:
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103991

chelydra

As you may have noticed, Danila added two MORE while the judging process was already going on (which is okay).
Just to help me think, I'm putting all danila-pix into one place (trying to corral these frisky critters is no easy task)

And I'm omitting the titles, because I don't want to be judging titles.

It's possible a couple of these were done a day or two before the challenge got posted, but I think you'll agree that in this case we won't worry about such technicalities.

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103511
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103478
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103436
__________________
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103630
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103360
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103322
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103214
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103665
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103778
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103795
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103812
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103921
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104069

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104164

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104212

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104503

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104632

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104670

chelydra

While pondering whether I call pull a single picture out of this awesome avalanche to represent Danila in the final show-down, she certainly gets the Most Awesome Avalanche of Entries Award. She also gets the Most Dramatic Drama award (each of these pictures is a powerful drama, all of them together are a powerful dramatic series, the TD equivalent of The Sopranos).

chelydra

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=101899

Found this is danila's gallery, predating challenge by just long enough to be outside our (slightly bent) rules. I'm posting it because it's worth a look. In fact it's pretty amazing.

chelydra

This little collection gets (collectively) the Grand Prize, but sadly not a single one is exactly eligible for the only prize that counts, the Best Picture Award.

Either they were done too early, or they fall a bit outside of Mild Cubism as I've been defining it. But these are all, individually and together, so astonishingly good, of such startling originality, so perfect, that I just have to do this...

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=101899

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104670

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=102717

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103736

chelydra

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104616

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103904

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104306

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103436

I can't decide which one of these four is the best contender from Danila's avalanche. But it doesn't matter. Danila is the Bravest Mild Cubist, the Most Powerful Mild Cubist, the Most Dramatic Mild Cubist, the Most Prolific Mild Cubist, the Most Astounding Mild Cubist, and I could keep going, and Danila, if she'd like to, is welcome to take the stage and give us acceptance speeches for all these and for each of her other awards too. She can do long-winded, terse, giggly, tear-drenched, drunk, sober, shameless, or dignified speeches, one right after another, and spend as long she wants thanking each and every one of her 750 Italian painter ancestors.

chelydra

Here are the four final finalists:
(My choices of five and danila pieces are really random; at least three others would do as well in both cases.)

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103436

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104256

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=103584

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=104172

Qsilv

Hoorayyy!! and Congratulations, Danila!


Your "After Spring Downpour" happens to work for me by my own skewed criteria -- I could hang it on my wall (or install it on my computer desktop) and look and look and look and look at it... getting lost in different parts of it each time, depending on my mood.


I look forward to what you'll perpetrate... er... offer... offer! us for the next MugDots challenge!

chelydra

But Qsliv, you've jumped the gun! As it happens, I'm following your advice. I'm judging according to whim. Objectively, Danila's should win. Objectively, five's should also win. Objectively, dreamy's is probably closest to my own idea of Mild Cubism in terms of how she constructed something in space with those strong thighs and knees. But subjectively...

chelydra

...and with some serious misgivings...