Try to choose the best fit for your painting. Remember, you can enter up to 5 times, once in each category, and you have the potential to win with all five! That being said, each painting will be judged according to the category it’s in; so if you put a still life in the abstract category, it doesn’t matter how good it is, it will not get scored well. (PLEASE do not send your painting images to the judges directly. Judging is blind so they should not know who the paintings entered belong to or have any input before the contest.)

Abstract: Art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors, and textures.

Animal & Wildlife: Living things and especially mammals, birds, and fishes that are not human.

Landscape & Water: The depiction of natural scenery in art. Landscape paintings may capture mountains, valleys, bodies of water, fields, forests, and coasts and may or may not include man-made structures as well as people or animals. People and animals should not be the focus of the painting, but can be in it.

Portrait & Figure: Includes the human form in any of its various shapes and postures. Paintings can show partial figures or the whole figure.

Still Life & Floral: A piece that features an arrangement of inanimate objects as its subject. Includes all kinds of man-made or natural objects, flowers, fruit, vegetables, fish, wine and so on. Looked at another way: still life’s depict things that are “still” and don’t move.

You do not have to be a member of WIW to enter the International Juried Competition, only the Members Only Show in the Fall. However we hope you will join us anyway!

The entry link will be posted on the WIW website shortly before entry opens.

Entry for the Juried show is through the http://www.CallForEntry.org (Cafe) website. https://artist.callforentry.org We hope this will make it easier to enter and help streamline the process.

• Each contestant creates an account with Cafe, makes a username and password, enters contact information, uploads painting images and pays the entry fee all through that site.
• Save your username and password and you can log in anytime to check or update your entry status before you have checked out and paid.
• Once you have checked out and paid your entry is final.
• If you are having trouble logging in, entering, or paying for the show, please contact the CAFE ENTRY WEBSITE directly. The judges have no access to this part of the entry process and can not give you passwords, entry or payment help. https://www.callforentry.org/contact-us/
• PLEASE do not send your painting images to the judges directly. Judging is blind so they should not know who the paintings entered belong to or have any input before the contest.
• If you have already checked out and need to edit the categories or want to add more entries, please contact Women in Watercolor. https://womeninwatercolor.com/contact/

Your painting itself can be any size for this show. This is referring to the file size of the image to upload.

Entry for the Juried show is through the http://www.CallForEntry.org (Cafe) website. https://artist.callforentry.org

They allow a maximum file size for upload of 5mb. This means your file size has to be under that.

• Your image should be as close to this size as possible. This larger better image allows the judges to be able to zoom in on your painting during judging to see all the details.
• Smaller less detailed images don’t show up as well.
• Make sure your image is clear and in focus and exactly represents your painting. Image must be correctly oriented (vertical or horizontal).
• Show only the image, no frame, mat or border. Image must be cropped to show painting only.
• No digital enhancement is allowed.

Thank you for your interest in entering the 6th Annual Women in Watercolor International Juried Competition!

1. Go to the Café entry website: https://artist.callforentry.org/festivals_unique_info.php?ID=15222

2. Click “APPLY NOW”. It will bring you to the login page. If you have entered the WIW Juried show in the past you should already have an account; sign in with your username and password. If you don’t know it you can go to “forgot username or password” on that page to get it. (This is not your WIW member login, this is separate for the Cafe entry website.)

If you don’t have an account yet, click “sign up for free” and set up your new account. Do not set up a new account if you have one from before.

3. Agree to the rules and questions and click save.

4. Click “My portfolio” and then “Add Media” to upload your new painting images into your café portfolio.

5. Once your images are in your portfolio then click “Apply to Calls” at the top of the screen and you can enter Women in Watercolor in the search bar and it will bring you to the 6th Annual Women in Watercolor International Juried Competition.

6. Pick the images you want to enter and click “Save application”.

7. Choose which category each image will be entered into. They each have to be in a different category and you can enter up to 5 paintings total. Click “save category” and you are ready to checkout.

Congratulations and good luck!

If you have already finished and paid for your entries and need to edit the categories or switch out your image, please contact Women in Watercolor. https://womeninwatercolor.com/contact/

• To edit an application after it has been submitted, you must be placed in the Incomplete status by Women in Watercolor.
  
  Please contact WIW and ask that your application status be changed to Incomplete. https://womeninwatercolor.com/contact/ This has to be done BEFORE the close of the competition.
  
  Once your application is in the Incomplete status, you will need to do the following steps: 
  On your My CaFE Entries page, click Modify.
  Make your necessary changes. 
  Once you are done making changes, click Save Application and then My Changes Are Complete.
  Click Yes, Change Status to Received.

Be sure to complete the steps above before the call’s application deadline. Once the contest is closed, no more changes can be made.

Juried Awards Notice will be after July 24. Award winners will be posted on the website after this. Due to the high number of entries it takes a little while to get everything sorted, judged and posted after the show ends, so please be patient.

A credit card from outside the USA does not work through Café due to the zip code not being 5 digits outside of the US.
International artists are able to submit payment through Paypal. It is free to create a Paypal account and add an international credit card to the account. Then, choose to pay via Paypal on the Checkout page on CaFE.

No. If someone else has taken the reference photograph you can not enter that painting into the Juried show. You need to paint plein air or take the reference photo on your own. Having permission from the photographer does not qualify. The reason is simple. A huge part of a paintings success is all about the overall composition, how things are arranged on the page and cropped and the lighting. If you take the photo, you have come up with the image and composition on your own. If someone else took it, they have already done half of the work for you.

You can see all of the details for entering in the prospectus. https://womeninwatercolor.com/women-in-watercolor-prospectus/

All winning paintings for the Juried Show are posted on the website with the image, name and information about the artist. Once posted on the website, these paintings will be displayed there forever. Each year we add more winners, but you can always go back and see all of the past winners from any year. You are welcome to enter these paintings into other shows at any time.

This is an online show only so you do not need to ship anything. Paintings will not be for sale through Women in Watercolor. Simply upload the painting image on the website and that’s all you have to do! They do not have to be for sale. You can enter a painting from any time period as long as you have not entered it into a previous Women in Watercolor Competition. It does not matter if you have already sold it or if it’s won awards in other shows. If we are contacted from a potential buyer wanting to purchase something, we will pass along the buyers contact information to the artist with no commission taken from Women in Watercolor.

Judging is completely blind. There are 9 judges from multiple countries, backgrounds and styles of watercolor that go through and score every single entry. The judges score each piece from 1-20. All nine judges scores are added up to pick the winners. Depending on the year, each category has a different number of entries, making that category more or less competitive. There is a cutoff score that determines which paintings are accepted or not. The number of accepted entries varies each year depending on the scores. Judging is completely blind. The judges have no access to the artists name, country or any other information; they are just looking at images. All they have access to is the category entered, the painting image, size and title. The judges do not know who wins until the scores are tallied and the winners are posted online with their names! PLEASE do not send your painting images to the judges directly. Juried Awards Notice After July 24.

Running an international show has many expenses. All of the fees paid to enter are used to pay the judges, pay the platform fees, pay the tens of thousands of dollars in prizes, thousands in advertising for the event and then more for advertising and promoting the winners; and so many other costs associated with running a huge competition like this. All of the rules for the contest are clearly stated before you enter. The entry fee is not returned for declined entries, duplicate entries or withdrawn entries. It states this very clearly in the prospectus which is posted on the website and entry platform.

This competition is open to all styles of watercolor painting. Some people have mentioned that more of the awards tend to go to photorealism. The judges can only score what is entered. If more photorealistic paintings are entered, then probably more will be award winners. The nine awards judges are chosen to have a range of backrounds and painting styles to keep judging fair for all watercolor styles. You can see on our Judges Page all the different types of paintings they do. https://womeninwatercolor.com/2023-awards-judges/ We encourage and love ALL styles of painting and would love to see what you do!

Not the case. The awards and acceptances are done strictly off the total score from all nine judges. There is a cutoff number and nothing under that number gets in. Each year there is a different number of accepted entries because it is all done strictly off a cutoff score of overall points awarded. Above the cutoff number is accepted, below is not. Therefor only accepting one painting per artist would just lower the number of acceptances, not make room for more. It is done this way to keep the quality of the show as high as possible. We don’t want to accept the most, we want to accept the best.

Juried Awards Notice will be After July 24. You got your accepted letter and found out you won an award; what now? Due to the high number of entries and awards being shipped out it takes a little while to get everything in the mail after the show ends, so please be patient. If you don’t know what your award entitles you to, you can see all of the details in the prospectus. Merchandise Awards change each year and will be sent to you as soon as possible after the judging concludes. https://womeninwatercolor.com/women-in-watercolor-prospectus/

The past few years we have had over 1600 entries from over 65 countries in each show! This year was over 1800 entries from over 60 countries! This represents the best of the best women watercolor artists and is a highly competitive show. Each painting is judged on its own merit. We have 9 judges each year that look at every single image and give it a score that they think fits best. The judges represent all different styles and backgrounds to make it as fair as possible. If you did not get accepted this year, I encourage you to keep working and try again next year! You can enter up to five paintings, one in each category, to increase your chances.

Unfortunately due to the high number of entries there is no way to give feedback on each entry. Some of the judges do paid mentoring or critique sessions with artists; that might be an option if you would like feedback. Please feel free to contact them only after the competition is scored.

Any painting that a judge has any question about the authenticity of at all, for any reason, the artist is contacted by WIW. They submit proof of their reference photo (taken by themselves), photos of their in progress painting, materials used, or whatever might be in question.

WIW strives to make this a fair competition. Anything in question is researched thoroughly to make sure everything posted on our website is authentic and real watercolor art that follows the rules in the prospectus.

Yes we do! Starting in 2023 Women in Watercolor now has a membership option. We are so excited to offer this option so we can share more work from more women artists at every level of watercolor painting! You can see more details at: https://womeninwatercolor.com/membership/

As of September 30, 2024 we have opened our new Members Section on the WIW website!

Members are now able to join right on the website, login to your account, edit your own profile information, add your own painting image for the gallery, add your website and social media pages if you would like. You can go in and edit your information and change out your photo whenever you would like. Your address, phone number and other personal information is not shared in your profile, only your country.

To add/edit your painting image: To upload your photo after you join; go to Edit Profile, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, click on Choose File. Please add your painting image only and make sure it shows NO people or other background. Please do not add a headshot, this is for a painting only. Then click the Update Avatar button.

To add/edit your website or social media pages: To add a website or social media page, format has to be the full link address starting with http. Ex: https://womeninwatercolor.com/

The membership year runs for one year from the date you sign up.

Our first year of membership ran from October 1, 2023 through September 30, 2024. With the new members area of the website, starting on September 30, 2024, membership will run for a full year from the date you join.

Membership fees must be kept current per year to keep your listing online, ability to enter the Members Only Show and all other member benefits. You will lose signature status after one year of not paying membership dues. Membership dues are $35 per year. No refunds.

If you are looking to enter the Annual Members Only International Exhibition that opens for entry November 1, your membership has to be current during the time of the show.

When you join as a member an email is sent out to you. You can also log in and check your account page for your membership dates. Please do this before contacting us about your membership status.

Our Annual Juried International Competition is a JURIED competition with entries from all over the world to compete and win huge cash prizes and awards. The winners are the best of the best female watercolor artists and are chosen by a panel of nine judges.

Our Members Only Show is a NON-JURIED online only exhibition where women watercolor artists at every level can be represented. The rules are less strict for entry and every painting entered will be shown on the website to best support and promote ALL of our members. You can see more details here: https://womeninwatercolor.com/members-only-exhibition/

Our Members Only Show is a NON-JURIED online only exhibition where women watercolor artists at every level can be represented. Every painting entered will be accepted and shown on the website to best support and promote ALL of our members.

We are thrilled to announce Viewer’s Choice AWARDS have been added for the Members Only 2025 Exhibition. Once the entry is closed and images are up on the website, people will be able to vote for their favorite and monetary awards will be given for the top choices.

Acceptance in the Members Only Show does NOT count towards signature status even if an award is won because it is a non-juried show.

You can see more details here: https://womeninwatercolor.com/members-only-exhibition/

You must be a CURRENT member before entering the Annual Members Only International Exhibition. If you have not signed up for membership (on the new site) after September 30, 2024 your membership will need to be renewed before entering.

When you join as a member an email is sent out to you. You can also log in and check your account page for your membership dates. Please do this before contacting us about your membership status.

https://womeninwatercolor.com/membership-home/

Women in Watercolor was established as a supportive community for artists, built on the foundation of mutual respect and encouragement. We invite you to share your artwork in this welcoming space, where negativity and harsh criticism will not be permitted. Please understand that personal attacks or insults, whether on social media or other online platforms, may result in the removal and blocking of users from our pages, as well as exclusion from future competitions and membership opportunities. Let’s work together to create a positive environment for all artists!

Women in Watercolor does not have a non-profit status at this time. WIW was created to support and promote women artists. We are doing this by putting everything we can into promoting the amazing women working in this field through huge cash prizes, paid promotions online and in publications. Part of this also includes paying our judges and members for the work they do, which we would not be allowed to do as a non-profit. You would never hire a contractor to build a house and not pay them. Women in Watercolor feels the same way about artists, they should be paid for the work they do.