Epcot's New Festival of the Arts Is A Figment Love-Fest

On Friday John and I spent an exceptionally soggy day checking out Epcot's first ever Festival of the Arts.

The rain may have put a damper on things - literally - but it also kept the crowds and temperature down, so I'll take it.

Best thing of the whole Festival greets you right behind Spaceship Earth:

FIGMENT TOPIARY!!

Isn't he perfect?! Gah. I want one in my front yard. (Would that be weird? Because I'm ok with being weird.)

And another surprise awaits you just past the fountain:

These living statues will look familiar if you've been to Disney Springs lately, though they're different designs and on new custom platforms. I've been trying to figure out the themes: Copper is obviously Earth/Nature (wind power, flowers, etc.), and Silver is Space, but Gold is... steampunk? I... I don't get it.

Whatever, I got the coolest shot of Gold:

HDR is fun.

And that's the actual sky color! Talk about a literal gray day.

(All of these were taken with my iPhone 6S. I edited this one with Snapseed - also on my phone -  but most of the others were done in Adobe Lightroom.)

Over in the Odyssey Building there are daily art presentations on stage:

Plus themed food and drink and exclusive merchandise:

Noticing a theme here?

Aw yeah Figment!

There's also some great art for sale:

Best of all, there are two small walk-through exhibits. One's for Mary Blair:

... though if you go in expecting her iconic Small World style - like I did - you'll be disappointed. Still, some nice paintings, and this adorable sketch:

My favorite is the second exhibit, dedicated to Herbert Ryman:

 

He did the most incredible concept art for the parks. Check it out:

I would seriously hang any of these in my house!

I love how big they are, too, so you can see all the little details.

It's been far too long since we had a Figment picture in here.

BOOYAH.

These fabulous chocolate paintings (on chocolate easels, natch!) are just one of the many art-themed foods being sold around the park. When this chef saw me ogling them, he beckoned me over and held it up so I could take a picture. 

There are other chocolate art options at different booths around the Showcase:

 

There are so many pretty food items, though, I won't bother trying to mention them all. Head over to Disney Food Blog for a complete list and tons of photos, if you're curious.

Once you get to the World Showcase you'll find some of the most clever photo ops I've ever seen:

 

These set-ups let you walk inside famous paintings, and as you can see even from my angle, the illusion is crazy convincing. (The group before this had someone pretending to throw up over the side of the boat. Ha!) There are three or four of these photo spots around the showcase.

 Another fun thing to look out for? Almost all of the character spots have custom paintings!

Doc painted this one, while it looks like there was a... disagreement... over who painted Aurora's:

Baha! Such a great touch.

Look for other paintings by Belle's dad (which has an amazing, steampunky easel) and Alice. Since Morocco doesn't allow art of living things, though, you won't find one near Jasmine & Aladdin. This also affects the Figment Scavenger Hunt, but more on that in a sec.

First, look at this suh-WEET picture:

 

I combined my phone's fish eye lens (womp womp) with the panorama feature. Nifty, right? 

Moving on.

 

Also around the Showcase are artist tents, selling a mix of both Disney and non-Disney art. Some of my favorite artists, like Kristin Tercek and Jerrod Maruyuma, are having signings throughout the Festival at these, so keep an eye out!

OK, now let's talk my favorite part of the Festival: the Figment Scavenger Hunt.

Just like the annual Easter Egg Hunts, this involves purchasing a map & stickers, which you'll place on the corresponding country as you find them.

If $7 seems steep, keep in mind you get a prize at the end: one of these four Figment magnets.

Also, "Figment's Brush with the Masters"?

C'mon, that pun alone is worth $7.

The stickers are of famous paintings, but they are oh-so-slightly misleading:

If you don't want to know why the stickers are misleading, because you plan to do this Hunt sometime before it ends Feb. 20th, then GO NO FURTHER. 

Yep, I'm about to post major Scavenger Hunt spoilers from all of the Showcase countries. So again, if you want to be surprised, do NOT scroll down.

But for everyone else, who can't visit in time to experience it yourself? Prepare to be DELIGHTED.

Here we go.

Starting in Mexico, you have to enter the building itself to find the first painting:

At first I completely fixated on the Figment accent on the frame (there was much squeeing), so John had to point out that Figment was also IN the painting itself.

 See him? 

Here, I'll zoom in:

Right then and there we knew: this was gonna be goooood.

Yep, not only does the Hunt make you go into each country's buildings (unlike the Easter Eggs, which are always outside), you also get to see how the Imagineers incorporated Figment into each famous painting!

And lemme tell ya, they are SO FUN.

Let's take a closer look at that frame accent, because I love it with the love of a thousand squishies:

K, back to the paintings:

I won't tell you exactly where the painting are in each country, but they're almost all in shops, and I think all are near or in the KidCot areas.

Remember how I said Morocco doesn't allow art of living things? That makes its painting the only Figment-less one:

But you'll note it IS in Figment colors.

Oh hey, I just noticed Figment's reflection is waving to him in this one:

And he's wearing a beret! Cute!

Some of the paintings were hard to get close to, so I had to zoom in on these last ones:

And that's the whole hunt!

Hope you guys got a kick out of your virtual visit with me!

Again, the Festival runs every weekend (including Fridays) through February 20th. If you go, be sure to tell me which foods you tried and liked, so I know what to get next time!

[Note: I'll be announcing my art winners next post, so you've got a few extra days to enter!]