Wildlife Artist of the Year 2015 - Call for Entries

The Wildlife Artist of the Year 2015 art competition has issued its call for entries. This is its 8th year and the competition is now accepting submissions until February 13th 2015 for its annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries.

Flyer for the Wildlife Artist of the Year 2015

This is a well known and reputable art competition run by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation. Its purpose is to raise funds for save endangered wildlife. It is a competition which attracts entries from both well-known professional wildlife artists and newcomers and amateurs. Emerging artists aged between 17 and 25 years old get a category all to themselves!

The competition culminates in a very popular week long exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London between 29th June - 4th July 2015. All profits are donated to support wildlife conservation.

Every year the competition gets better and better and the amount we raise to save endangered wildlife increases. It is such a thrill for me to know that so many share my passion for art and for wildlife.
David Shepherd CBE

Categories for entries

Below are the formal categories for entries. Note in particular that, apart from the wildlife portrait categories all artwork can include can include landscapes, flora & fauna.

There's also a special plea from the website to remember not to forget British Wildlife.  It doesn't all have to be wildlife on dusty plains in Africa!

• Endangered Wildlife – threatened on endangered (as determined by the current IUCN Red List see http://www.iucnredlist.org/)
• Wildlife in 3D – sculpture in any medium
• Wildlife in Monochrome – in tones of any one colour
• Wildlife Portraits – where any wild animal(s) features as the main focus
• Wild World – any scene or landscape showing the natural environment
• Original Prints – drawn from one or several plates, conceived and executed entirely by hand by the same artist*  Check the website for the very precise definition of a print.
• Contemporary Wildlife – challenging traditional boundaries
• Young & Wild – open to 17-25 year olds covering all the above categories
• Silver Artist – open to over 60 year olds covering all the above categories

You can view the artwork selected for exhibition in 2014

Prizes

The Winner gets a very significant cash prize

• Overall Winner £10,000 cash prize and title 'Wildlife Artist of the Year 2015'
• Overall Runner-Up £1,000 cash prize.
• Remaining Category Winners £500 each.

These were the prizewinners in 2014. Click the link in the title to see the artwork. Click the link in the name to see more artwork by this wildlife artist

• Overall and 3D category winner 'Transparence Elephant' by Pascal Chesneau
• Runner-up and Wildlife in Action category winner Aiming by Chew Choon
• Endangered Wildlife category winner Rhino by Rohan Chhabra
• Wild Life category winner Sword of the Desert by Stefano Zagaglia
• Wildlife in Monochrome category winner Rook by Suzie Dafforn
• Young & Wild category winner Shirokuma by Liara K Crane
• Silver Artist category winner Ptarmigan Descent by Philip Lawson Johnson
• David Shepherd's Choice Vulture Club by Martin Buffery

You can see all the winning artworks in this article by The Guradian

Deadlines for entries

The closing date is 13th February 2015

Who can submit?

This is an international open competition. It regularly attracts entries from overseas. Entry is open to eligible submissions from:

• both amateur and professional artists. No distinction is made in the judging for the relative status of the artist.
• artists aged 17 years or over (ie 17 years of age by the closing date – 13th February 2015).

What can you submit?

These are the terms and conditions for entries

You can submit:

• work completed within the last five years by the entrant
• original work 
• multiple entries
• any medium except photography and film

NOTE that artists using exact reference from another professional artist or photographer MUST have prior written permission from the copyright owner. Source material and proof of permission to use MUST be made available on request by the judges.

You CANNOT submit: work completed before 13th February 2010 is ineligible for entry and cannot be submitted

• Work which is not original to the artist
• work which has been sold - either before entry or before the exhibition. The whole purpose of the exhibition is to raise fund to help protect endangered wildlife
• photographs, video or electronic images - they will all be disqualified

How do you submit

Entry is online or via the post.  Your artwork should be submitted as a JPEG digital image via the digital entry form or should be burned to a CD. They recommend

• a minimum resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels
• a file size not exceeding 6MB.
• all files must have an easily identifiable name eg your surname followed by title of art artwork

What does it cost to enter

There are three price levels for entries

• Entry for DSWF members is £10 
• Entry for all others £25 per entry except the young and old (see next line)
• Entry for the Young & Wild ((17 – 25 year olds) and Silver Artist (over 60s) categories is also £10 

More about Wildlife Artist of the Year in previous years

• David Shepherd's Wildlife Artist of the Year 2014 - deadline ... 18 Jan 2014 - Summary of the Call for Entries for David Shepherd's Wildlife Artist of the Year 2014 - exhibition at Mall Galleries in June 2014.
• Wildlife Artist of the Year 2013 - David ... 06 Jun 2013 Wildlife Artist of the Year 2013: Review of the prizewinners and exhibition at the Mall Galleries.
• Wildlife Artist of the Year 2013 - Call for entries 24 Oct 2012 - Overview of call for entries for The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation Wildlife Artist of the Year 2013 Competition.
• Wildlife Artist of the Year 2012 - Call for entries 16 Dec 2011 - The overall BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year 2012 wins a place for one person on a 10-day painting safari with Pip McGarry in Botswana in October 2012
• Two opportunities to be Wildlife Artist of the Year 2011! 25 Jan 2011 - The competition is open to all professional and amateur artists aged 17 and over. The top prize is £10,000 and all shortlisted artists are exhibited at the Wildlife Artists of Year 2011 Exhibition at the Mall Galleries
• Adam Binder wins Wildlife Artist of the Year 2010 25 May 2010 - Yesterday evening, at the Mall Galleries, Adam Binder's stunningly simple bronze sculpture of a polar bear on an iceberg - "Sinking Feeling" - won him the title of Wildlife Artist of the Year 2010. 
• Art competition: Wildlife Artist of the Year 28 Jan 2010 - The title Wildlife Artist of the Year is awarded by a panel of judges appointed by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) and comes with a cash prize of £10,000 generously donated by the exhibition sponsors
• Exhibition review: Wildlife Artist of the Year 2009  02 Jun 2009 - You can see my photos of fellow coloured pencil artists Gayle Mason and Jonathan Newey with their work on the UKCPS News blog in UKCPS members and their art at Wildlife Artist of the Year 2009.
• Wildlife Artist of the Year 2009 - the online exhibition - 13 Apr 2009 - so refreshing to see the online exhibition for the Wildlife Artist of the Year some two months in advance of the actual exhibition in June.
  MAKING A MARK: Two wildlife art competitions and a snow ... 28 Nov 2008 -The Wildlife Artist of the Year, run by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF), is open to amateur and professional artists alike from anywhere in the world. Artists must be aged 17 by the closing date - 30th Jan 2009.