ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS!!!

ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS!!!

Hello, Everyone!! Well, the first International Interwebs Welly Wanging Competition has officially come to a close. I’m sorry if you were not able to find the time to join in (ahem! to my brother, who promised he would get to it), because it turns out that Welly Wanging is super fun! But don’t worry – it was SO much fun that I’m pretty sure we’re going to celebrate spring NEXT year with another competition.

We got a lot more entries in under the wire today because Alden had her 6th birthday party, and we included Welly Wanging as one of the activities. It was great fun. We split up the various jobs associated with our particular tournament, and swapped them around for each round. There was, obviously, the Welly Wanger.

Welly Wanger

Then there was also the line judge (that’s Alden’s job in this photo):

Line Judge

The measurer:

Measurer

The score recorder:

Score Recorder

And the photographer:

Photographer

There were also two guards per round who stood at the end of our sidewalk and made sure no unsuspecting folks leaving Doug the Baker’s with a bag full of sun buns would get hit by a flying welly. Six different people were spared the offense (and we were spared any lawsuits) thanks to those guards.

Also, perhaps THIS photographer should have had a guard or two protecting her (I’m talking about ME):

Watch out!

Do you see it? Do you see the threat? Here, let me help:

Look out!

Do you see that boot? The one headed straight for my head? Well, I didn’t see it. I was too busy taking pictures. I really could have used those guards there. Thank goodness we weren’t using standard issue wellies, because we might have had to broadcast this post from the emergency room. Hallelujah for not entirely following the rules!

Alright. The upshot of this all is that we had a great time, and definitely see more Welly Wanging in our future.

BUT – FOR THE PRESENT:

We have our official listing of the entrants and their measurements –

In the kid category:

Sydney: 9 yards
Grace: 8 yards, 1 inch
Quentin: 6 yards, 2 feet, 8 inches
Harvey: 5 yards, 6 inches
Alden: 4 yards, 2 feet, 8 inches
Anna: 5 yards
Lily: 5 yards, 1 foot, 9 inches
Gabby: 5 yards, 1 foot, 5 inches
Liza 4 yards, 2 feet, 4 inches
Kato: 4 yards, 2 feet, 2 inches
MJ: 4 yards, 5 inches
Bailey: 4 yards
Harry: 2 yards, 2 feet, 1 inch
August: 2 feet, 8 inches

In the adult category:

Mark: 27 yards, 1 foot, 2 inches
Guyberg: 25 yards, 2 feet, 6 inches
Matthew 24 yards, 2 feet, 5 inches
Jeany: 15 yards, 1 foot
Peter 24 yards
Robbi: 10yards, 7 inches

And so, we are proud to announce the winners of this year’s first International Interwebs Welly Wanging Competition!

The trophy goes to Sydney, with a final distance of 9 yards even!! Congratulations, Sydney! The trophy will head your way shortly!! I hope that you can find some time to send us a photo of you once you get it! Good job!!!

Sydney Welly Wanging

The first runner up prize, an 8×10 print of your choice (of any of my past illustrations) goes to: Anna!!!

Anna Runner Up

We were most impressed with Anna’s tough-as-nails approach to the competition, not being undone by a little bit of snow. Congratulations, Anna!!!

And finally, we’d like to award the final runner-up 8×10 print to Team Team Mark-Jeany-Harvey-Harry-and-sometimes-Guyberg!!!

Team Mark-Jeany-Harvey-Harry-and-sometimes-Guyberg

Technically, Mark came in with the highest score, but we think the grown-ups have minor height, strength, power, focus and coordination advantages and shouldn’t be considered in the same running as the rest of the kids.

So there you have it. This officially closes the first International Interwebs Welly Wanging Competition! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

We see a future in this sport, and look forward to a more robust competition next year (along with the invention of a calculator that will convert inches to yards, feet and inches, and not just one of the three).

Thanks to everyone who joined in!!! Happy Spring!

Drawing Prompt – Spring

Drawing Prompt – Spring

Hello everyone!

I would say spring is in the air except that it snowed yesterday. BUT – that did not deter me from doing my drawing of spring. I was inspired by the video of the birds building their nest in the Theme of the Week post (HERE). So I thought I’d draw some eggs in a nest.

Spring Nest

I found another great video of weaver birds building nests. They don’t particularly have to do with spring, so I didn’t put it in the original theme post, but since I was inspired by their hard work, I thought I’d show you here:

Pretty cool, huh? I like how that poor young weaver bird was still learning how to make his nest, not very successfully. But, he just kept on trying, which is really the best way to get better at something anyway.

I’m also going to include Alden’s spring-inspired drawing here, mostly to remind you that that the First International Interwebs Welly Wanging Competition IS ON, and as it stands, Matthew is going to win the trophy, I’m going to win one of the 8×10 archival prints, and Kato is going to win the other one. As you can see from Alden’s drawing, her wanging record was 23″ (that’s 1 foot, 11 inches, in official tournament measurements), which didn’t make the cut. It might have been due to the non-regulation boot we had to use – one of August’s, so quite small (seen on the left, in black and red).

Alden's Welly Wanging Drawing

If you do not find Alden’s picture or free prints of my drawings compelling enough to join in the competition, well, how’s about THIS:

Welly Wanging Trophy

That is the trophy the longest-distance Wanger will win. (Runners up will be judged on distance AND style points.)

So, you have TWO assignments this week! Number 1: Draw something inspired by Spring! Number 2: Join our Welly Wanging Competion! (If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out HERE). Post your drawings and/or pictures of Welly Wanging below to be entered in this week’s contest! And may the best Wanger Win!

Also: if you’d like a coloring page of this week’s drawing, here it is:

Spring Nest Coloring Page

Oh, right, and if you’d like to put in a bid on my original bird’s nest illustration, you can do so HERE.

The End, good golly, THE END!!!