Are you ready?

I'd like to open this posting by acknowledging the deep admiration I have for those who entered submissions in my art contest: Picram, Shulamit, Afesotinuilar, Renault, and Oipo!

A round of applause for these mighty creators and their vulnerability in submitting pieces for the chance to have their items displayed in the gazebo on Litharge.

And now, the part you're waiting for - The winners! We'll go by category with a quick reminder of the requirements, and a highlight of each winning piece.

Flower Bouquet
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A simpler entry option, designers entering the bouquet category should aim to combine a complimentary blend of flowers in an eye-catching, fragrant, and generally pleasing collection.

Design element: 806 - Bouquet
Prize: 50,000 marks

Winner: Afesotinuilar

Bouquet: A fresh bouquet of wintry flowers
Small enough to fit comfortably in the crook of the arm, this bouquet has been lovingly arranged with several varieties of plants native to the boreal forests and snowy plains around the Belaul community of Yr'esh'eya. Rigid leaves of red-brown fallu sedge provide a supportive backdrop of warm maroon, woven through with strands of arrine leaves as fat as pearls. More delicate blooms have been placed against the sturdy leaves and bold colors, including the papery umbels of lantern-like auradi, puffs of cottony white fallu fleece, graceful cascades of snowy shula flowers, and at a the heart of the bouquet, a twinned pair of purple niniku flowers blooms like a pair of living amethysts. Wooden reproductions encrust the elastic ribbon that ties everything together with carvings of a truly bountiful harvest, boasting burgundy cinyrberries, pale brown aulnuts, orange nivlen berries, and a homely and mismatched collection of red- and purple-skinned root vegetables.

Potted Arrangement
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Designers entering this category should be prepared to create both a pleasing arrangement of flowers and the ground-standing pot within which they will reside.

Design elements: 805 - Arrangement, 702 - Pot
Prize: 100,000 marks

Winner: Afesotinuilar

Arrangement: A floating arrangement of serene lilies
Drifting across the surface of the water, flotillas of small and circular green leaves shelter some lovingly-cultivated lilies within their verdant embrace, safeguarding the arrangement from any errant ripples. Clusters of white nuphari have been coaxed into full and dazzling bloom, unfolding complicated bowls of snow-white petals to drift upon the water, and sown throughout their watery beds, several white honey-lip lilies contribute just a dash of bright and golden color. Skeins of spun gold wire connects each bloom to one another like a constellation, spelling out the High Shen word for 'Serenity' in illuminated threads.

Pot: A jade reflecting pot
A large but irregularly-shaped piece of flawed green jade has been tumbled smooth and hollowed to form the bowl of this wide but shallow reflecting pot, and the six curled feet on which it rests. It has been filled with a measure of clean, cool water, allowing nearby reflections and patterns of light to play across its tranquil surface.

Framed Painting
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Designers entering this category should create both a painting and the frame to accompany it. There is no restriction on color scheme or materials, nor will I provide any suggestions as to the content.

Design elements: 683 - Painting, 712 Frame
Prize: 100,000 marks

Winner: Oipo

Frame: a white porcelain frame joined at each segment with black rubber joins
Examined Smooth porcelain segments joined with rubber form a simple rectangular frame. At each inner corner of the frame, thinly sliced malachite peeks out while the rings of oxidized copper-green crystal give the whole piece an organic quality, like a wet-worlds shelf lichen. Charcoal ink has been drawn directly on the porcelain, winding out from each black rubber joint onto the bone-white surface of the picture frame.

Painting: a green-tinted painting of an early morning in a residential street
An early working morning is laid out in loving brushstrokes of greens, greys, and yellows on the canvas. The skyline is fuzzy with green-tinted smog, and the grey shapes of buildings and docked freighters have bled together, looming over this residential street. Vague brushstrokes convey the movements of a distant household bot beating out a grub-silk rug, nanoparticles flying every which way at the movement. Day labourers trudge off to work in the foreground alongside the packed hovercars of office workers that trundle past in blurred pigments. At the leftmost corner of the foreground a young Shen sits with an elderly Human in the shade of a syncrete post. The umber and ash-hued youngster seems to be in the midst of recounting some highly amusing anecdote, arms gesturing wildly and tentacles waving excitedly from their jaw. The hunched female Human, with wiry and greying hair, listens intently with a cocked head and wry smiles to the story, a half-eaten ration bar forgotten in one hand.

Statue or Sculpture
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Designers entering this category should create a free-standing installation of any type so long as it fills the space with a sense of awe. There is no limit on material types for the structure.

Design types: 703 - Sculpture, 741 - Kinetic_sculpture, or 732 - Statue
Prize: 75,000 marks

Winner: Renault

Statue: A paristeel statue of Holgorath V'lani, the Guardian Prime
Dressed in fleet commander's attire and with his eyes hidden behind a pair of spacefaring goggles, the imposing figure and perfect posture of a Jin warrior looks proudly to the sky here, one hand pointed towards some celestial body only he can see and the other holding a locket of his beloved partner, Lupisentia V'lani. A large plaque at the base of the statue reads: "Holgorath V'lani, Star Commander of the Celestine Fleet and Guardian Prime."

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Again, thank you to everyone who participated for your enthusiasm, your creativity, and your general skill with the arts! Marks prize winnings have been distributed and I will post again once the creations have been set up by the gazebo.

With wonder and awe,
Lupisentia V'lani