Challenge: Paint a Parking Lot

Painting by Scott Lloyd Anderson

There's beauty everywhere, right? Well, how about in a parking lot?

That's the subject for the next GurneyJourney on-location painting challenge. We've done this before with gas stations, graveyards, weeds, and outdoor markets, and you've created stunning artwork.

Art in a parking lot

I invite you to paint some interesting aspect of a parking lot. You might paint a view across a lot, with or without cars. You could emphasize a light effect, an interesting sign, or a cluster of shopping carts, or a little bit of nature alongside the lot. It can be a New York vestpocket parking lot, an underground parking structure, or a suburban big-box lot.

(Link to video on Facebook)

How does the challenge work?

Everyone can upload their examples to this special Facebook event page. I will choose a Grand Prize winner and five Finalists. Each receive a coveted "Department of Art" embroidered patch, and the Grand Prize winner will also receive a free tutorial download.

I hesitate to call it a "contest" because there's no entry fee and the spirit is more about cooperation, community, and camaraderie than competition. We're all at different levels of skill and experience, but we're all out there braving the elements and trying out new painting ideas.

Painting by William Wray

Guidelines

• Must be painted outdoors, or at least mostly outdoors.
• The composition can include the scene beyond the parking lot, but the parking lot itself itself must be a part of the scene.
• You can focus on the ordinary aspects, the sublime aspects, the ugliness, or the beauty. Just make it  interesting. 

• All physical painting media accepted, such as oil, watercolor, acrylic, gouache, acryla-gouache, alkyd, casein, or water-soluble colored pencils.
• No limits on palette of colors.

Deadline
• You can enter as soon as you finish the piece, but no later than the deadline: Friday, July 27, 2018 at midnight New York time. Winners will be announced on Wednesday, August.

Bird's Foot Trefoil, donut wrapper, and plastic bottle
alongside supermarket parking lot

Submission Guidelines
• Free to enter
• It must be a new painting done for this challenge. In addition to a scan of the final painting, your entry must include a photo (or video) of your painting in progress in front of the motif.
• Upload the images to this Facebook Event Page. If you don't have a Facebook account, please ask a friend with an account to help you. Please include in the FB post a mention of what medium you used, and if you want, a word about your inspiration or design strategy, or an anecdote about your painting experience.

• In addition to the Facebook event page, you can use the hashtag #parkinglotchallenge on Instagram or Twitter to see what other people are doing.
• If you end up doing more than one entry, please delete your weaker entry so that we end up with just one entry per person.

Prizes
I'll pick one Grand Prize and five Finalists. All six entries will be published on GurneyJourney, and all six will receive an exclusive "Department of Art" embroidered patch. In addition, the Grand Prize winner receives a video (DVD or download) of their choice. Everybody who participates will have their work on the Facebook page, too.
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Check out the previous results for gas stations, graveyards, and outdoor markets.

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