Quick Draw Competition

Fri. Feb 15

1:30 p.m.; Auction at 3 p.m.

Price included with general admission

Charleston Place Ballroom

Corner of Meeting and Market streets

New to this year’s SEWE is the Quick Draw Competition, which boasts distinguished pre-selected artists who will have just one hour to paint a piece. That’s right — works that would take most people hours, weeks, even months will be created and unveiled in 60 minutes.

Those who stop by the event will get to see the creative process in action. “Watching it all unfold in a short period of time, the process and styles will be interesting to see, and all proceeds go to such a worthy cause,” says SEWE’s Ashley Slane.

At 3 p.m. the artists’ completed works will be sold at an auction at the Charleston Place Ballroom and all proceeds go to the MUSC Children’s Hospital.

The featured artist of this year’s SEWE, Peggy Watkins, is one of the Quick Draw competitors. A dedicated researcher, wildlife observer, and photographer, Watkins lives alternately in Atlanta and Zambia. She will be joined by 17 other celebrated painters.

So what kind of paintings can you expect in such a short time? That’s up to the artists themselves. Maybe it will be a landscape of mountain streams and evergreens. Maybe it will be a lion on the savanna. Or maybe it will be of a particularly ferocious Shih Tzu taking down a wildebeest. Who knows? The artists will have the option of using reference materials, or they can let their creative juices flow and paint freely. “We are going to witness 18 pieces transform from blank canvas to completed works,” says Slane.

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