I guess I am an award-winning artist, in that I've entered work of mine into art shows and won awards. And I guess I'm an award-winning playwright too, thanks to winning in last year's Midtown festival. I never think to call myself "award-winning" though, possibly because I feel like unless you've won something really big, like the Pulitzer Prize or something, it doesn't really count. But still, I've seen other playwrights who've won awards no bigger than mine refer to themselves as "award-winning." I guess if it helps your career...
One of these pictures won an award - I think it's the middle one but I really don't remember and this was before everything was online so I can't even look it up. But I see that the Perkins Center for the Arts is still doing juried exhibitions and giving out awards, so that's nice. It's all online now of course.
The top picture is a sketch I did from life of my ex-boyfriend John, and then I transferred that onto newsprint and colored it with pastels. I called that one "Prone Boyfriend" and the one below of course "Suppine Boyfriend." I must have a pencil study of the bottom one but I couldn't find it.
I remember what a hassle it used to be to take photos of your artwork - you had to hire someone if you wanted it done right. And now it's just so freaking easy - you take the picture, upload it, and publish it for the world. Voila. And not just easy, but such high-quality images. And I didn't do anything fancy with lights, which is what professionals did back in the day - I put the pictures on the floor and took them with my iPhone with the flash on.
There is something about a hand-drawn or painted image though that still has a charm all its own in spite of the greater accuracy of photography. I do enjoy the tension between the realism of the drawings and the abstract qualities of the pastel quite a bit.