10 UKCPS members in South West Pencil Artists Exhibition

The South West Pencil Artists Exhibition
Karen Coulson discusses artwork with James Brinsford
photo by Pat Heffer

Last weekend four local UKCPS groups in the South and South West of England came together to stage an exhibition at the Old Mill Gallery, Worton, near Devizes.

10 UKCPS members from the local pencil groups based in Somerset, Bath, Romsey (Hampshire) and Devizes (Wiltshire) combined with a number of other pencil artists to hold the first South West Pencil Artists Exhibition comprising pencil art in both coloured pencils and/or graphite on 17th-19th July.

'Tortoiseshell on Pebbles'
10" x 12", Stabilo Original pencils on Fabrianno Classico HP paper,
copyright Bev Lewis

Bev Lewis sold one of her works 'Tortoiseshell on Pebbles' which has previously been exhibited at the very first UKCPS exhibition at Patchings. The exhibition generated a lot of interest and a great many visitors. A number of artists also sold prints and cards.

Members who organised the event enjoyed sharing their enthusiasm for coloured pencils with others. This is an extract from and a link to Pauline Longley's blog post about the exhibition.

The Gallery has lots of atmosphere and good lighting. There are about 100 pictures from 20 artists in a wide range of subjects; botanical, fur and feathers, landscapes, portraits, buildings and more.

Prior to the Private View on the Friday evening, Karen Coulson held a workshop on drawing animal's eyes in Pat Heffer's studio in Devizes, mainly for members of the beginners group run by Pat.

Karen Coulson helping UKCPS member Marion Ramsden
photo by Pat Heffer

This group has booked Karen to do two further workshops - one in September (drawing a pheasant) and later in the year a whole day workshop (drawing a parrot).

Members can see Val Wilson's workshop drawings in her album in the UKCPS Yahoo group.

Pat was especially proud as 5 of her group for beginners also exhibited in the exhibition and one of them was the runner up in the public vote!

Coloured pencil art in Annual SOFA exhibition

Coloured pencil artwork by a UKCPS member features on the front cover of the ever popular colour brochure/private view invite for the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Feline Artists' (SOFA).

SOFA Exhibition 2009
Colour Brochure/Private View Invite

Two of the works on the cover have been produced using coloured pencil.

Christmas Cat by UKCPS member Irina Garmashova SOFA is the largest work at 14" x 20 and has been produced using a combination of acrylic and coloured pencil on paper. Irina also has other coloured pencil artwork in the show.

The second work Meet the Kittens is by yours truly! It's 12" x 8" and is pure coloured pencils on Arches HP. I was officially flabbergasted yesterday when I was contacted by Gayle Mason who wanted to congratulate me on getting on the front cover! It's "the place to be" if you want to get your work noticed by the many feline art collectors who visit this very popular exhibition every year!

Meet the Kittens
12" x 8", coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Other coloured pencil work in the brochure includes work by fellow UKCPS members:

• Moody Blue by Gayle Mason SOFA is mainly coloured pencil with a little bit of acrylic
• Margaret Edwards's I Can See You - coloured pencil on paper.

SOFA has a tradition of always giving coloured pencil artwork a prominent place in its exhibition. Founder member Anne Aggett SOFA has been drawing and exhibiting cats in coloured pencils for very many years.

The exhibition

The SOFA Annual Exhibition takes place in central London at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery in London (near Waterloo Station/opposite the Old Vic).

The exhibition dates this year are 28th August through to 18th September, (10am - 7.30pm Monday to Saturday).

The exhibition includes works by Full and Associate members of SOFA members. It will include approximately 300 paintings of cats in oil, acrylic, watercolour, pastel, coloured pencil and etchings and is the largest exhibition of feline art in the country. Prices range from £80 to £3,000 with the majority of working being under £750

Submission of artwork

Only Full Members and Associate Members of the Society of Feline Artists can submit artwork to the exhibition. Full membership is by selection only, after completing a year`s Associate Membership. Full members can exhibit up to six works and Associate members can submit up to four works.

Any UKCPS members interested in submitting work to SOFA can find out how to do this by reviewing the Associate Membership page on the SOFA website. You'll need to contact the membership secretary Sara Butt to find out if it's still possible to submit work for this year's exhibition.

The deadline for submitting work suitably framed to the gallery is Thursday 6th August between 10am and 4pm. This is a Gallery Exhibition and the selection of all work is done solely by the Gallery Director Jillian Llewellyn Lloyd. Please note, there is absolutely no guarantee of getting work selected. Also no matter how good the work an unsuitable frame can lead to a work being rejected.

You can read a review of last year's show here.

Gayle and I are very happy to advise any interested UKCPS members on guidelines for matting and framing coloured pencil artwork.

Gayle can also advise on the process of applying to become a full member having achieved this status last year.

National Exhibition of Wildlife Art - selected artists announced

The organisers of the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art have selected the artists for their annual exhibition which runs from this Friday 17th July until Sunday 2nd August 2009. This is an excellent exhibition of wildlife art which has a very high quality and competitive entry.

This is the list of selected artists and, once again, UKCPS member Gayle Mason (Fur in the Paint) has been selected for this exhibition with two works accepted. I think this makes three years running for Gayle.

Intensity
16" x 12" on colourfix
copyright Gayle Mason

One of the works Intensity is a mixed media drawing of a wolf using acrylic and coloured pencil on blue Art Spectrum Colourfix. For those who like to see a work in progress, you can see how this particular artwork was progressed on her blog in the following posts.

• Wolf in acrylic and coloured pencil
• Wolf - continued
• Mixed Media Wolf- part 3
• Wolf Continued
• Wolf Finished, Snow Leopard Started
• finishing with what it feels like to get that letter of selection... National Exhibition of Wildlife Art - NEWA

The online exhibition for this exhibition is always really excellent. If you would like to think about entering this exhibition next year you can see the nature of the work accepted on Friday when the online exhibition will go live. This is last year's online exhibition and I'll update this post when the 2009 online exhibition goes live.

One of the major advantages for artists who are successful in being selected for this exhibition is that it takes purchase orders online and always achieves very good sales.

The exhibition is in West Cheshire on The Wirral at the Gordale Garden Centre, Chester High Road, Burton, Wirral CH64 8TF - the link provides a map of how to find it.

Note: If any other UKCPS member has been accepted and would like that noted on the blog please contact me and I'll add in your details.

World of Coloured Pencils 2009 - The People's Choice

All Seeing Eyes (£200) by Edwin Thornber
20 x 15cm
Pencils: Lyra Polycolour, Caran D’Ache Classicolour, Derwent Signature on Bockingford 140lb Watercolour paper
copyright Edwin Thornber

UKCPS is pleased to announce that the winner of the People's Choice Prize at the World of Coloured Pencils Exhibition in Keswick is All Seeing Eyes by Edwin Thornber. Edwin's lovely picture of an owl attracted 19% of the vote although interestingly he did not get an award from the judges.

This is what Edwin had to say about his work.

The image of the owl was the result of a trip to a bird sanctuary for distressed or injured birds. I have wanted to paint a bird of prey for some time but did not have the information, photos etc. This lovely owl was an obvious choice and a few minutes of silence and two good photos resulted in a lovely portrait.

Coloured pencil is a wonderful medium for being so “user friendly” and not much space needed for the completion of works. There is no limit to what can be achieved given a little time and effort and most of all enthusiasm!!

Derwent, who sponsored the exhibition, have donated the prize for the People's Choice award. The prize comprises the following items:

• Presentation wooden box 48 Inktense pencils
• Tin of 6 Derwent Sketching pencils incl. sharpener
• Derwent Journal/Carnet notebook
• 2 Brush pens [1 fine and 1 broad point]

You can read more about the exhibition which has just finished at the Cumberland Pencil Museum in earlier posts as follows:

• Keswick - exhibition opens and awards announced
• World of Coloured Pencils 2009 - Other Award Winners
  
• World of Coloured Pencils 2009 - The Artists
• Keswick: Thanks to Derwent and the volunteers

UKCPS Annual Exhibition - the entry results!

No - I don't mean who's got in!

I mean that Pat Heffer, the Exhibition Secretary has now released the figures for the 8th UKCPS Open International Exhibition 2009 - how many people sent how many entries and how these have changed since last year.

So if you want to know what your entry is up against, read on!

	Last Year	This year	Change
No. of entries	153	162	+9
No. of artists	72	72	no change
No. of entries from the UK	55	61	+6
No. of overseas artists	17	11	-6
No. of artists from:
Canada		1
France		2
Ireland		1
Israel		1
Italy		1
Japan		1
Spain		2
USA		2

It's very likely that the credit crunch has had an effect on the number of entries from overseas - due to the cost of shipping work to the exhibition.

The space available in the gallery at Birmingham is, I understand, bigger than that which has previously been available for UKCPS exhibitions. So we can now all wait with baited breath to see if that means more works are going to get hung this year!

DATES: Finally a reminder of the key dates

• Notification to entrants: 21st August
  
• Handing in day: Sunday 20th September 2009
• Exhibition dates: Monday 21st September to Saturday 3rd October 2009

I'm going to do a reminder about framing once we've got exhibitors have been notified. Please email me if you'd like to send me any tips you have for mats and frames.