Amazing How Surprises Happen When You Let Your Guard Down

Winner & Official Poster of the 44th Annual Santa Paula Citrus Festival 2011

Have you ever really wished for something or wanted it really bad? Well recently I created a piece of artwork for an illustration class. The assignment was to create a poster for a festival. Create an original piece using Adobe Illustrator to help with the illustrating. Not wanting to just create something for the class only, I decided to research festivals online. I came across a citrus festival in California, Santa Paula to be exact. This festival had a long standing history in the California Citrus Community for many years. Actually Santa Paula is known as the "Citrus Capital of the World" for it's expansive lemon and orange groves. Tens of thousands of visitors come to this annual festival each year.

As I researched the festival I discovered that they even had an annual contest to find a winning design for the festival's poster. I was impressed with the past winning artists and chose that as my project destination.

Knowing the feel and look I wanted I began my research and design activities and put in countless hours completing my piece. In the end I was happy with what I had done. I submitted it to my teacher and was pleased with the A, I received. The last thing I had to do was send the image to California before the judging deadline and await the results. I had actually forgotten about it for a while. Then a few weeks ago I went on to their website to see if I could find the results. I saw an artists named for the poster and it wasn't me. I was a bit disappointed, but was still happy with myself and the job I had done.

A few weeks went by and I received a letter from the festival committee. I opened it thinking it would say thank you for entering, but the winner was... blah blah blah. To my happy surprise it was actually a congratulations, you have won letter. My poster had been chosen out of all the entries to be the official one used for the 44th annual Santa Paula Citrus Festival. Woohoo, mission accomplished. I was totally surprised, a very happy surprise at that. Here I had viewed last years web page with the 43rd annual winner listed. Old news as they would say. I am very honored to be in the company of the past winning artists.

So I let my expectations and guard down thinking I had been defeated and instead had gotten a very happy surprise when I didn't expect a certain outcome. Maybe if I begin to let my guard down a bit more I'll receive more good stuff. How about you? Has this ever happened to you? Let me know your story.

If you happen to be in Santa Paula California this month between July 15th to the 17th. Pop on by the festival and have  some fun. Keep your eyes open and maybe you'll see the winning poster too.

For more info on the festival go to http://www.santapaulafestival.org/