Competitions

 SWAA Art Competition

Supporting the Saskatoon Zoo 

An exciting competition for artists creating 2 dimensional art (Sorry - not photography or carvings)

• $30 entry fee (e-transfers to swaa1986@gmail.com accepted.)

• Deadline for submissions is 12am CST (midnight) on May 12th 2024.

• This competition is open to all members of SWAA.

• Submission can be a new, or older piece of, a painting or drawing in any medium.

• $100 will be awarded to the 1st place winner as well as an opportunity to sell their artwork prints (small items) in the zoo gift store until the end of the 2024 season.
  (All items going into the gift store must be pre-approved by the Saskatoon Zoo).

• $60 will be awarded to the 2nd place winner.

• $40 will be awarded to the 3rd place winner.

• Winners will be required to submit a high resolution file for reproduction. The actual winning piece will never be required (only the image). Artists maintain ownership of their original piece.

• Each winner gives the right to SWAA to make 1 print of undetermined size for donation to the Saskatoon Zoo for their Annual Zoo Gala as well as permission to use the image in SWAA’s And/Or the Saskatoon Zoo’s online media posts (post about the winner of the competition and also for website use). 

• The 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winner’s prints will be auctioned live at the Zoo Gala on June 7th.

• The images will be judged by judges from SWAA and judges from the Saskatoon Zoo.

• For those artists needing a reference photo the zoo sent us some for the competition. SWAA members will be provided with a link to those photos upon request; contact swaa1986@gmail.com

• The Zoo’s featured animals for 2024 are the Bears and the Zebras, however any animal currently located at the zoo is acceptable for submission.

• Snowy Owl

• Bald Eagle

• Great Horned Owl

• Red-tailed Hawk

• Short-eared Owl

• Grizzly Bear 

• Bobcat

• KuneKune Pig

• Dingo

• Snow Leopard

• Arctic Wolf

• Meerkat

• Crested Porcupine

• Black-tailed Prairie Dog - Hibernating for Winter

• North American Porcupine

• Goeldi’s Monkey

• Pallas’s Cat

• Ring-tailed Lemur - Inside Small Mammal House for winter

• Naked Mole Rat

• African Soft Fur Rat

• Canada Lynx

• Markhor

• Pygmy Goat

• Fallow Deer

• Baby Doll Sheep

• Wapeti (Elk)

• White-tailed Deer

• Pronghorn

• Bighorn Sheep

• Mountain Goat

• Caribou

• Bison

• Plains Zebra

• Axolotl

• Blue-tongued Skink

• Lake Malawi Cichlid

• Fire-bellied Toad 

• Poison Dart Frog

• Royal Python

• Western Hognose Snake

• Garter Snake 

• Hermann’s Tortoise

Submissions Guidelines

Send an email with the image attached to swaa1986@gmail.com with the header “Zoo Gala wildlife competition 2024". Please include the following other info, (Phone#, website, Piece’s title, media, original’s dimensions)


A. Subject of the submission must be a current animal in the zoo, see above for a list of current animals.

B. JPG files only of your 2 dimensional artwork suitable to be reproduced

C. 300 DPI resolution (Please try to keep the file size under 10 MB to ensure proper loading).

D.  Do not send images of your artwork which has been framed or contains watermarks. Must be cropped so only the artwork is in the image.

E. SWAA  may color correct your images in order to enhance the overall presentation.

F. SWAA  may crop your images for formatting purposes for use in their Facebook / Instagram Posts and for other areas of the website if your image is chosen as the winner.

G. The sizing and labeling of your images are very important. Label your image files in the following manner: first and last name, the medium used, size. Here is an Example: JohnBrown_watercolor_8x10 (this is the filename not a label on the image itself).

H. The file name may not include characters such as #, $, &, periods or other similar characters as part of the file, and it is important to follow these instructions about the file name to allow the right storage into the image database.

I.Winner will be required to submit a high resolution file for reproduction.

J. SWAA reserves the right to choose an alternative winner if they deem the quality of the submission’s resolution insufficient to make a quality reproduction.

K. SWAA retains the right to skip any submissions not suitable for reproduction.