Honorable Mention
Julio Reyes

Finding which medium best suits his goals for a painting is important to Julio Reyes. He works mainly with oil paint and graphite but, when the situation demands, he will transition to another medium such as charcoal or watercolor. About The Northern Girl, Reyes says: “I wanted to evoke a sense of vastness and beauty, isolation and human frailty. The warmth of a single person set against an infinite sprawl of technology, tangled power lines and steel towers seemed poetic and dramatic. There’s an arid, silvery quality to that air, and it’s woven into every building, face and freeway. I suppose that’s what led me to use graphite the way I did.”

Reyes ( www.julio-reyes.com) usually starts a piece by studying the focal area intensely and then produces studies in graphite and watercolor. He rendered most of the darkest values in The Northern Girl with a mechanical pencil through a painstaking, meticulous process of layering. Reyes’s commitment to art is quite simple: “I want to create art for the rest of my life according to my highest calling and fullest abilities.”

Finalists

Faith Anthony
Gainesville FL
Jorge Alberto
Baltimore MD
Andrew Ameral
Concord CA
Ann Balch
Moncton, New Brunswick
Justin Balliet
Berwick PA
Casey Baugh
Ashland MA
David Beal
Overland Park KS
Brian Burt
Cincinnati OH
R. J. Clark
Virginia Beach VA
Ellen Cooper
Media PA
Fabio D’Aroma
Miami FL
Nicole Desmond
New York NY
Kimberly Dow
Corpus Christi TX
Hollis Dunlap
New London CT
Roxanne Dyer
Montreal QC
Marcel Franquelin
Milltown NJ
Tim Gaydos
Paterson NJ
Ilene Gienger-Stanfield
Phoenix OR
Kristy Gordon
Ottawa ON
Adrian Gottlieb
Los Angeles CA
Lefu Gu
Albany NY
Amanda Hext
Lake Charles LA
Bill James
Ocala FL
Julia Jandrisits
Putney VT
Karen Kaapcke
York NY
Christine Kornacki
East Elmhurst NY

Zin Lim
Richmond CA
Jonathan Linton
Ashburn VA
Glen Maxion
San Diego CA
Ronald Monsma
South Bend IN
Katie Musolff
Milwaukee WI
Jerome Parker
Lompoc CA
Shaun Peck
Avon UT
Kevin Peterson
Houston TX
Pam Powell
Guerneville CA
J. Kirk Richards
Provo UT
Mark E. Schuler
Prairie Village KS
Suzy Schultz
Atlanta GA
Terry Strickland
Pelham AL
George Thompson
Doylestown PA
John E. Thursby
Ocala FL
Alexandra Tyng
Narberth PA
Carol Vanderpool
Waverly NY
John Vistaunet
Marysville WA
Margaret Tcheng Ware
San Francisco CA
David Wells
Macleay Island, Australia
Aaron Westerberg
Santa Clarita CA
Benjamin Wu
San Francisco CA
Hal Yaskulka
Van Nuys CA
Anna Youngers
Sioux Falls SD
Victor J. Zaldivar
Nyack NY

To read the jurors’ comments on the award- winning pieces, go to www.artistsnetwork. com/articles/2008-jurors-comments.