About the OPA Online Showcase
The OPA Online Showcase is an art competition available to OPA members three times a year and is another opportunity for members to show their artwork throughout the year.
Each on-line contest will have one honorary judge who will narrow down to the top paintings. Award amounts vary between contests.
Not a member and want to enter the Online Showcase? Learn how to become a member
Fees
The entry fee is $15 and allows you to show one piece of oil paint artwork in the OPA Online Showcase.
Contest Rules
- Associate and Student members are eligible to enter all 3 Online Showcases which includes the Spring, Summer and Fall competitions. Signature members are eligible to enter the Fall Online Showcase and will compete in their own category. To become a member, apply online at: www.oilpaintersofamerica.com. Artists must reside in North America.
- New members must apply for membership by the posted membership deadline, or wait until the next online show.
- Paintings entered must have been painted in the last 3 years
- Artists may enter as many artworks as they would like. Each artist is only allowed to win one of the top thirteen awards.
- Artists may NOT enter paintings that have won awards in other OPA shows.
- Artists who win an award in one of the Online Showcases MAY enter his/her painting in a Regional, National or Salon Show provided it meets the submission criteria.
- Artists may enter paintings that have been sold.
- A painting can be submitted into each Online Showcase until it receives an award.
- Entry for each painting is $15
- All entries will be displayed on this website
- There is no size restriction
- You may upload any image size you want but there is a minimum of 1400 pixels on the longest side so the judge can see enough details
- Make sure your painting is signed and that the signature is visible in the image upload
- You will not have to provide the painting physically, so you don’t worry about having to ship it.
- Artwork may be submitted until midnight, central time on the last day of the submission deadline.
- All submissions must be made through this website, email submissions and/or physical submission can’t be accepted.
- The artist retains copyright to his/her image(s). However, award winning images do become part of OPA archives and may be used for future OPA event promotion.
- Awards will be sent to winners after the conclusion of the show. OPA is required by the IRS to issue and receive a W-9 form from all artists who win award monies of $600 or more.
Please strictly adhere to the rules outlined below. OPA strives to maintain the highest ethical practices and levels of integrity in oil painting. Our intent is to be true to the history of oil painting and the traditions that have been upheld for centuries.
● Paintings must be created on one singular flat substrate. Multiples are unacceptable – i.e., diptychs, triptychs.
● Copyright infringement of any kind is unacceptable. It is unethical and against OPA policy for artists to submit work created from another person’s drawing/painting/photo or other artwork that is not solely their own.
● Digital apps and programs may be used for cropping your reference photos, etc., but no digital, mechanical, photo, or other transferring to the substrate of any kind is acceptable. You must draw and/or paint the image on your substrate yourself.
● Your submission must be originally conceived: your own reference, your own drawing, your own concept and must have been self-painted.
● No direct copies of stock images, historic photos, or of any reference for which you do not hold total copyright are allowed. You must be able to provide signed documentation of total copyright should OPA request. Purchased reference material that transfers copyright to the artist is unacceptable.
● Paintings created in an instructional setting, included by not limited to workshops and art classes are not considered original artwork. A painting created from a group photo shoot set-up by another artist is not considered original artwork. Paintings created in an open studio where artists share the model are acceptable provided there was no instruction being given of any kind.
ACCEPTABLE SUBSTRATES: Any primed, smooth, flat substrates including: primed canvas or linen, stretched or on a panel, wood, gesso board, acrylic gessoed dibond, aluminum, aluminum composite panel. Acrylic primer is acceptable. Oil primed paper is acceptable if adhered with archival adhesive to a proper archival substrate. Paintings should NOT require being placed under glass.
UNACCEPTABLE SUBSTRATES: Any textured surface including decorative copper, tooled aluminum, natural stone, barn wood or three-dimensional objects. A substrate containing any printed image or photograph is prohibited regardless of whether it is your own or someone else’s image/photograph. Paintings should NOT require being placed under glass.
ACCEPTABLE MEDIUMS: Oil paints, alkyd resin, water soluble oils, oil sticks/bars. Metal leaf (ie: gold, silver, etc.) is acceptable if it doesn’t comprise more than 20% of the visible surface.
UNACCEPTABLE MEDIUMS: Watercolor, acrylics, mixed media, Genesis paints, oil pastels.
DEFINITION OF RESIDENCY
Artists eligible to compete are citizens – both natural born or otherwise – of North America who are current OPA members. Nonresident aliens who currently live in North America are eligible to participate if they have been physically present at the address provided to OPA for eight of the last twelve months and if the residency is their permanent domicile.
A domicile is a fixed, permanent home to which an individual intends to return whenever absent. Nonresident aliens whose North American residency is in question will be asked to provide proof of residency, including employment history, references, and utility bills in the individual’s name. Nonresident aliens falsifying claims of residency by providing an address in which they do not reside will be asked to resign from the organization. The decision of the Board is final.