Photo Contest Winner Announced! – The Chad Frye

Over on the Chad Frye • Illustration Guy Fan Page on Facebook, I’ve been running a photo contest for the past month. The instructions were simple – take a photo of yourself with a book, card, poster, piece of art, or even a print-out of something of mine. Be as creative as possible. Photos came in from all over the United States taken anywhere between Hawaii all the way to Ireland! It was really terrific.

One of the early front runners was this picture of Brian Hohlfeld, the executive producer of The Disney Channel’s “My Friends Tigger & Pooh” show taken in Hawaii while holding one of Chad’s Christmas cards.

Another early favorite was this photo by Andy Heckathorne who works at Penn State University. He has Chad’s recent Frankenstein head attached to the statue of Joe Paterno at Beaver Stadium.

All the photos were due this past Monday, and then the real contest began to see how many votes the photos would get from the fellow fans in order to choose a winner. Voting has been fierce this week. The voting started with about five photos being neck in neck, then three of them surged forward with more votes. A quick check to discover that those three photographers were doing some pretty good campaigning for their photos – not at all against the rules.

This sweet photo sent in by Shawn Garzony of South Carolina shows her daughter with Chad’s second book, “My Bible” (published by Barbour & Co. in 1993). This earned a highly respectable 26 votes for third place.

Then, in just the past day, two pics pulled away on their quest to be first at the finish line. The race has been very exciting with votes coming in from all over the country. First it was one out in front, then the other. The tension was edge-of-your-seat thrilling!

This shot of Michael Boone was sent in by his brother Matt. While standing on the campus of Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC, Michael is holding a sketch of Mushu from Disney’s “Mulan” that Chad drew back in 1998. This had 33 votes.

And then pulling away with just 3 extra votes for a grand total of 36 is our winner, Heather Lynn Lewis Schaub of South Carolina. Heather’s was certainly the most bizarre entry. She managed to acquire a print of a “magic toenail” I drew for a mutual friend who had recently lost a toenail due to long distance running. So Heather got her family together in front of the SC State Capitol Building and took this shot of their feet with the little purple toenail drawing.

This odd, and yet strangely creatively compelling photo by Heather Lynn Lewis Schaub was the winner with 36 votes.

So, what does Heather win for all her trouble? She wins the original gorilla drawing titled The Wingman featured here on the blog in a recent “Drawn & Quoted” column. That’s right, she won an original piece of art! Not too shabby for humiliating her family out in public.

So, are you on Facebook? Do you like Chad’s art here on his BLOG and on his WEBSITE? Come on over and join the Chad Frye • Illustration Guy Fan Page on Facebook where future contests will be held.

For you Facebook customers, come check out all the entries in this photo contest by clicking HERE!