Congrats to Our Artist Winners & Finalists!

As you may have read earlier, we've searched high and low to find some of the most talents artists across the United States for our live sketch project at the Hi-Tec booth this Summer's Outdoor Retailer.

Over the past two weeks, we received nearly 85 submissions for this contest. There was an incredible amount of talent that came through our site, but we were able to narrow it down to 10 incredibly inspiring artists.

On Thursday, a few of us on the marketing team sat down to interview our Top 10 artists. Because of the nature of the project, we asked each artist to take 10-15 minutes to sketch out a topic that we threw out at random. And random it was—the topics ranged from puppies, clocks and chili peppers, to waterfalls, bonfires and theme parks. We were blown away at what these talented individuals could sketch in 15 short minutes (some even less than that!). Drum roll please...

Heather Ravenscroft

Road Signs

Dave Bloomfield

Bicycles

Davis Vu

Waterfalls

Jim Christiansen

Chili

Jessica Dalva

Theme Parks

J.R. Register

Earthquakes

James Walsh

Beach Bonfire

Norm Quiros

Puppies

Riki Takaoka

Clock

Robyn Cook *Unfortunately, there was a scheduling conflict and Robyn Cook was unable to compete for the final selection. We wish her all the best!

After consulting with our whole marketing team Friday morning, we had narrowed it down even further to three personable, versatile and ridiculously creative artists: Davis Vu, Norm Quiros, and Riki Takaoka.

The original plan was to only take two artists. After yet another round of interviews, and another 15-minute sketch challenge, we knew what we had to do—take all three artists!

So this August, Riki, Davis, and Norm will be joining the Hi-Tec team at OR, where you can see them bust out sketches like no one's business. In addition to hanging with our crew, we're hooking them up with the latest and greatest Hi-Tec gear, as well as $600 each for their time and talent. Congrats, guys!