Keswick Exhibition and other bits.

Just a reminder that this year's "World of Coloured Pencil" Exhibition opens on June 1st at the Cumberland Pencil Museum, Keswick, thanks to our friends at Derwent. In case you are worrying, while Derwent have moved their production facilities to new premises, the Museum still stays at the old site at Keswick, and the Exhibition is on there for the whole of the month of June. Pat and John Heffer, Dave Richards, Eric Armstrong and the ever-present Suzy Herbert will be setting the Exhibition up on Sunday 1st June, and I am sure they will be delighted to see any members who wish to drop in and help or just say "Hi". Having seen the scans of the 23 entries, I can say how impressed I am with the overall standard this year and I am sure all visitors to the Museum will be delighted with the show.

Other news - thanks to Roger Harris for pointing us to a new supplier of Prismacolor pencils in the UK - Refuelled.com, who are selling sets of 132 Prismacolour for £105, excellent value.

And with apologies for being a day or so late telling you, Ann Kullberg has a sale on at present with up to 40% off many items - but it ends May 26th, so get in there quick!

Julie Douglas

Julie Douglas, "Dappled Son"

This gorgeous picture will have all members of the UKCPS pushing it in the next few weeks and months. Why? Because it is the only successful entrant into the CPSA Exhibition from a UKCPS member based this side of the pond - and I had to be careful how I phrased that as I did not want to all of a sudden annex Ireland! Many congratulations to Julie Douglas of County Clare, Eire, for achieving this year what so many have tried and failed over the past seven years, and at least we now have a toehold in the CPSA competition!

Other news: I have put up a fairly comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions guide to the UKCPS Exhibition, with what I hope are some pointers especially for overseas entrants. Please read this carefully if you are thinking - as I hope you are - of entering this year. We are trying to spot problems before they arise, which is something of a new approach for your Executive!

And finally, I hope you enjoyed my latest article in Leisure Painter magazine, in the current (June 2008) edition, encouraging you to work on different papers. I actually had a telephone call this morning from a gentleman who said "I didn't know you were such a fine figure of a man!"

Bob's bits

Another of those blogs where I just lump a few little things together to make a posting! I am conscious that I have not posted in a while, but will only disturb your in-tray if I really feel I have something of interest.

First a reminder that you should be working on your entry for our next Exhibition, entries due to Pat Heffer before July 9th, and the sooner the better as far as Pat is concerned. If you need an entry form, you can download one from here.

You may be interested to see the list of successful entrants for the next CPSA Exhibition, which is here. Perhaps what is most interesting is the long list of artists, including the past three winners, who have not been successful this year. It just goes to show that in the end this is all a matter of opinion.

Next, apologies for the fact that the UKCPS site was out of action for several hours today. I have yet to recieve an explanation from our hosts GNHosting, but at least it is up again as far as I can tell now.

Finally, a request for artists to support a worthy cause where they can. The UKCPS has a policy of only providing links from our site to other sites that have specific CP content, so when this site asked for a link I had to say no. But what they are doing is very laudable, and it would be well worth any of you clicking through and just checking out what they are trying to do. They also offer some good advice on protection of images - The Animal Artists Protection League tries to monitor the web for unlawful use of its members images. And they have a great logo!