Kim, thank you for the kind and enthusiastic comments! feedback like this keeps me going. Taking classes and reading The Artist’s Magazine are super ways to develop yourself as an artist - along with making hundreds of drawings and paintings. I also happen to be a booklover, and I must have several hundred books just about art. I’ll have to do a blog post sometime describing the categories of art books I own, and highlighting some favorites.

By the way, in your opinion, is the competition less stiff with the miniatures?

I’ve looked at some of the old mini entries in art for the parks and it seems like, on average, the minis were not on the same level as the regular size ones. The best minis are probably at the ssame level as the best regular sized ones, but the “average” quality seems to be lower and there seems to be more “scatter” about the average.

I realize part of that is simply due to the fact that it is hard to paint small pictures (God knows, it’s hard enough to paint those cat whiskers on the big ones!)

Then again, it may just be perception on my part, and i lay no claim to being expert judge by any means.

And “averaging” paintings as I do may be a wee bit unorthodox (I have a background in science/engineering), but perhaps there is something more to this? — More than just that “they have more room because the paintings are smaller “

Don’t overlook your local and regional shows. Long before I became more serious about my art career - eg, entering Arts for the Parks - I placed pieces in local fairs and did numerous horse and dog commissions. One of my favorite venues back then was the Harvest Fair - Sonoma County’s October fair celebrating the wine harvest. It had an art show associated with it which was small time and wildly variable in quality (think Aunt Martha’s watercolors of flowers), but ribbons were awarded and my paintings in the fair always sold…if I think about it, the success there had to do with the types of folks visiting the Harvest Fair: Bay Area wine-lovers, which typically have reasonable discretionary income to spend on something like art.

Get on the mailing list for your state arts council, as their newsletters will usually include notices of state and regional art shows. And there’s always ArtCalendar, another very good resource for gazillions of art shows - far beyond the few western representational things we’ve been talking about. There are loads of venues out there! ArtCalendar is helpful in that they refuse listings for shows which have engaged in shady dealings in the past (and they’ll note this).

With respect to sexism in the art world, I’ve mostly found it in shows which are:
(a) invitational, and
(b) your traditional western representational exhibitions

Hmm. wonder why that is.

Forgive me for being forward, but would it be safe to assume that the “Prix de West” contest is foremost on your mind? (sponsored as it is by the National Cowboy Museum)

You don’t need to answer that if you don’t want to (which will give me the answer, at any rate)

I was surprised to find that the [Artist’s ] magazine staff ‘pre-juries’ entries and narrows down the hundreds(?) of category entries to just 50 or so finalists that are sent to the actual category judge

Thanks. You just saved me some money. I was thinking about maybe trying that one in the future.

Any others that nobodies like me should stay away from?

Perhaps I should rephrase that (the list might be a lot shorter):

Any contests that nobody’s like me should bother entering?

You mentioned “Paint America” at one point. Any others?

And I should also disclose, in reference to other comments about judging and subjectivity, that I once juried the Animal Art category of The Artist’s Magazine’s annual competition. I was surprised to find that the magazine staff ‘pre-juries’ entries and narrows down the hundreds(?) of category entries to just 50 or so finalists that are sent to the actual category judge. I would have preferred to jury all of them myself, and since I now know how this competition operates - and that the category judge doesn’t actually see most of the work submitted - I no longer enter it.