Week 18 into this great contest... and my 14th entry for the Pay It Forward contest, hosted by @pifc! *

And the craziest part is that I don't even have to spend hours or even minutes to hunt for talent. There are so many great artists that I usually have to choose 2 posts from 4 or 5 that I encounter naturally on my daily SteemIt visits.

I actually spend more time writing these posts than hunting for new talent.

The rules of this challenge are very simple: Feature 2 High Quality Original Content Blog Posts from Steemians with a reputation score of 55 or under.

Again, I've selected 2 struggling artists. Here's the preview of their artworks:

#1 - @marya77 (41)

@marya77 has joined SteemIt just 4 months ago and her blog is very diverse, she shares a bit of everything, from photography (she appears to be from Iran) to cooking and, of course, her lovely drawings.

She doesn't share anything personal and perhaps that's a conscious decision, so I'll just focus on her work and skip my usual artist introduction.

The post I'm featuring from @marya77 is an illustration called Redskin Dwarf, a beautiful portrait drawing of an Indian warrior.

@marya77 also includes 10 photos showing the various steps into the drawing.

I had a couple more users I wanted to feature, but in the end, I decided to go with this post for a couple of reasons:

At first there was almost no text in this post, making it unfit for this contest, but meanwhile, @marya77 added it;
@marya77's reputation is only 41, making her a perfect candidate for this contest;
This post has been up for 2 days and has a ridiculous reward of $0.03 and 25% of those $0.03 are going to the Elegance Platform. How is an artist supposed to eat with that?

Please give @marya77 some love...

#2 - @lady-idra (42)

I love to make an artist's introduction but sometimes it's just not possible. If people don't share that information, I respect that decision and I move on.

Alenia joined SteemIt in April, but started posting just a couple of months ago. Her drawings are very original, cute and creative... which makes me wonder, what in the world was she waiting for?

I with to feature her most recent post, Abstract of Log, which is a marvellous and sweet painting of a dancing girl accompanied by @lady-idra's original poem.

I have just come across @lady-idra and I'm eager to follow her work. If this is the way she started, I can only imagine what she will present in the future.

I hope you enjoy these artists and their works. If so, please support them with a couple of votes and comments.

If you want to join the contest, here's more info about the "Pay It Forward" contest.

My previous participations are here: