2025 Hudson Valley Garlic Festival Poster Submission

The Hudson Valley Garlic Festival is a very large annual event in Upstate NY in the town of Saugerties. Every year they have artists apply to the poster contest for the following year for advertising purposes and swag. The requirement is to submit items from an artists portfolio. From their the board picks two artists, who get a stipend to create a poster for the following year, The dates are not provided, hence the two versions. I was one of the two people chosen, although I did not win between the two of us, with people attending this year's event choosing a simple digital design, which is not traditionally how it has been done in the past. I was not aware I would be competing against digital art or that digital art was allowed. The winner was a pickup truck with garlic in the bed, and some flag banners.I am not angry, I did get hundreds of votes. But, traditional artists are becoming all but forgotten, and it just saddened and surprised me that this seemed to be the case. This took me weeks to make, including soaking watercolor paper in coffee to antique it for the scrolls.