Picture Delivery for the UKCPS 13th Exhibition

For your information -

Delivery of pictures to the RBSA gallery must be between 10.30 and 12 noon on Sunday 27th April.  Pictures CANNOT be posted to the gallery.

However, for those people who can not make the journey themselves there is an option to send your work via one of several willing volunteers. Pictures in theory can be posted to the volunteers, so you don't necessarily have to live in the same town.  Please make sure the transport volunteer is ok with accepting posted entries.

If you are sending your work with someone, it is usually expected that your picture is wrapped appropriately. The best protection is 'jiffy bags'. It is also usual to agree some kind of transport charge with the person taking your work to cover petrol costs, etc.

There is a list of the volunteers on the yahoo forum. Please contact one of them if you would like their help in delivering your work.

Please attach a label to your pictures, with your name, the picture name and the selling price.

Collection at the end of the exhibition is very tight. They must be collected between 5.15pm and 6pm on Saturday 10th may.
If you cannot be there during that time, please contact one of the volunteers who can collect for you.
The gallery will make a charge for any work left after the specified time.

Please do not contact the gallery direct.

Please do not rely on the volunteers to contact you regarding transport. It is up to you the artists to organise how your picture gets there....

Ann Kulberg - "CP Msterworks, Vol. 2"

The American CP artist (and author of excellent books on CP techniques!) Ann Kulberg is a long time member of UKCPS.

We have received the following announcement from Ann which she has asked to be passed on to all UKCPS members:-

We are currently accepting submissions for "CP Treasures - Colored Pencil Masterworks from Around the Globe - Volume II"

Submissions are open to all colored pencil artists from around the world. No membership or subscription is required to submit work.

 

We are especially interested in colored pencil work from outside the US and Canada. We would appreciate it immensely if you could please help make this a truly international book by forwarding the news to your membership. 

 

Accepting entries: Now through October 22, 2013. 

 

Information and entry terms here: http://annkullberg.com/products/cp-treasures-entry-fee

 

Thank you so much! We appreciate whatever help you can provide us in getting the word out internationally.

 

Sincerely, Ann Kullberg

Anyone bound for Paris soon?

The UKCPS Chairman, Barbara Murray, has recieved an email from Elizabeth Patterson, a member of the Coloured Pencil Society of America [CPSA], who writes:-

"Hello Barbara,

Hope this email finds you well! I am a member of CPSA from Southern California and wanted to contact you because I will soon be arriving in Paris for a month long stay. I am hoping that I might have a chance to meet some of your members. I don't know that I will be leaving France during that time, but perhaps some of your members live there? I was in contact with Ann Massey some months ago, but it appears she is no longer an officer, hence my email to you.

The reason for my trip is a solo exhibition at Galerie Louis Carre' & Cie which is opening Thursday, Jan 26th. I would like to have the gallery send an invitation to your chapter, but do not see an address. I got the impression that your membership is spread across a rather large geographic area, so I understand if no one can meet with me or come to the opening, though I would be so happy to see ANYONE from UKCPS there, as I will know few people! This is only my second solo exhibition and as the time draws near, I am getting quite nervous about the entire prospect. I have never even been to Europe!

Many thanks!
Elizabeth"

If any of you members out there are visiting Paris at the end of January, and would like to be put in contact with Elizabeth, then email Barbara Murray at chair@ukcps.co.uk for further information.

Japanese coloured pencil artist wins top prize at CPSA 2010

The awardwinners for the 18th International Exhibition 2010 of the Colored Pencil Society of America are now on show on the CPSA website.

The top prize goes to Shinji Harada CPSA from Japan who won the CIPPY award and CPSA Best in Show prize of $2,000 with a still life work titled "Grapes in a Basket.

David Billingsley CPSA of Oregon came second with a view of a shopfront titled Seattle Ambience.  He won the $1,500 CPSA District Chapters Prize for Exceptional Achievement and achioeved signature status this year.  You can see a much better image of the work on David's page on the CPSA District Chapter 201 website (for Portland Oregon).  This is David's website.

A suite of prizes each valued at $1,000 were awarded to:

• Cynthia Morris CPSA (MO) for Look on the Bright Side
• Ester Roi CPSA (CA)for The Lightness of Being
• Pamela Burroughs (In) for Hannah's Bugbox
• Bonnie Auten CPSA (MI) for Labino's Tribute

Theer were a number of other prizes awarded due to the generosity of sponsors and District Chapters - details of which you can see on the Awards page.

This year there were no prizewinners from this side of the Atlantic.

This is the relevant blog on the CPSA blog Convention Recap - Top Award to Shinji Harada of Japan

CPSA Silent Auction Exhibition and Slideshow

You can now see the online exhibition of the works in the Silent Auction being held by the Colored Pencil of America  at the end of this month.

A selection of the works in the CPSA 2010 Silent Auction

copyright the artists/CPSA

Bids for the work will be accepted during the CPSA Convention week (July 27-July31 2010) in California.  Unfortunately the bidders have to be present at the final evening to win the silent auction so it's perk for those attending the convention and the best we can do is look at the work online.

If you click the image you can enlarge it to see it more clearly.  You can also choose to see the exhibition as a slideshow.

The works are typically under 10" x 8" so it's interesting to see what subjects the artists choose for smaller works and how they adapt their work - which we normally see in larger formats - to the smaller sizes.

Which is your favourite?

CPSA Explore This! 6 Online Exhibition

The online exhibition of the 6th CPSA Explore This! is now online.

Beginning in 2009, the CPSA Explore This! exhibition became a juried online show. This change was made with the hope of allowing artists to display their work to a broader audience. By encouraging the exploration of materials we hope all artists, colored pencil artists or not, will be inspired to enter their artwork in this exhibition.
CPSA - About the Exoplore This! exhibition

These are the links to:

• the award winners
• information about the juror Barbara Grazul Hubbard
• the exhibition 
• the list of participating artists and title of their artwork 

The exhibition continues until 31st January 2011

The Japan Colored Pencil Society

Late last year, UKCPS received news from Takako Ikuta in Japan. Some of you may recall Bob Ebdon writing about her in his sign-off post back in September 2008.

....finally - back to our very first exhibition. This took place at Patchings Farm in 2001, and our very first AGM was held there on a Saturday. The following day I got a call from Patchings - a lady had turned up for the AGM, she had come a long way, and would I like to meet her. It turned out she had come a VERY long way - it was Takako Ikuta, from Japan. I was delighted to meet her, brought her home for tea, and have kept in touch ever since. I was very excited to get an e-mail from her just this week to announce that she has formed the Japan Colored Pencil Society. Now look what we done!

• In September 2008, Takako founded the Japan Colored Pencil Society. It has 22 members.
  
• The society now has a website - the address is http://j-cps.org.
• JCPS also held its first exhibition in 2008 and exhibited the works of all those who applied. You can see a gallery of the first exhibition on the website and you can see photographs of them hung here.
  
• JCPS are also planning to hold a second exhibition in November 2009.
  

It's very interesting to note that some of the artwork is using coloured pencil at the same time as adopting the subject matter and compositional style of traditional Japanese artwork of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

About Takako Ikuta

Takako Ikuta UKCPS CPSA is a coloured pencil artist and author who has exhibited with both UKCPS and CPSA, was awarded signature status with both societies in 2004 and 2005 respectively and has won prizes and commendations at the annual exhibitions of both societies.

Which I think I'm right in saying makes her unique in the world!

More bits

It is a case of waiting until several mickles mak a muckle often! Here are three mickles that have come my way recently.

Paper People, based in Crediton, Devon, are one of the few suppliers of Prismacolor pencils in the UK, and the only one that I know of that can even offer singles. I have used them myself, so can recommend them. They also stock many other pencils, including Derwent, Faber Castell and Caran d'Ache. Go to "Coloured pencils 2" to find the Prismacolor, which are listed under "Karisma".

Aesthetica magazine have asked us to publicise their latest competition which is for artworks, poetry and fiction. The submission fee is £10 for five items and the prize is £500, so over to you if you want to take part.

Alyona Nickelsen, well known for her fabulous CP work and the author of "The Colored Pencil Painting Bible" due out in the Winter of 2008, has a new Online CP School that will open in Spetember, and is signing people up now. Alyona says:

There, we will present a variety of courses that will lead you through all of the detailed steps that we think will open new Colored Pencil Painting vistas previously available only after sitting through sometimes scores of Art Workshops. Our school is modeled on the atelier method of the Masters mixed with modern tools of the Internet never dreamed of in the Victorian age. If you are ready for a blast of new information on a timeline you can deal with then this completely different school is for you. The classes officially start September 1, 2008. This is perfect time to enroll and take advantage of ourlow introductory price (limited time only).

OK - more muckles as and when they come my way. Remember:

Closing Date for entries for UKCPS Exhibition: July 9th

So what is Art about?

"Hot Stuff", Bob Ebdon

The new rules proposed by the UKCPS for their Exhibitions in 2009 onwards have caused a lot of discussion, most of which seems to have been very useful to many artists in helping them define what they are doing, and what this "art" stuff is really all about. This post tries to bring some of that discussion together and answer some questions that have been frequently asked in private e-mails. We are sure many others have the same questions but have not spoken up!

So why are the UKCPS stopping us copy photos?
We are not. How you do your art is entirely up to you. What we are trying to do is have competitive exhibitions that are on a level field. The field is not level if some players are copying and others are not.

Is there anything wrong with copying?
That's up to you to decide. For us it comes down to this fundamental question - what is art? We like the answer that splits any work of art up into three areas. The most important one is the CONCEPT - the idea, what the picture is about. This might be something as deep as how Brand loyalty has taken over from Patriotism in the age of the multi-nationals (Banksy's latest graffiti), or something as simple as "Isn't this flower beautiful?". Then would come the DESIGN - how would you compose your picture to get that concept across, what compositional devices - if any- would you use to make sure the viewer understands what you are trying to say, where would you put elements within your picture, what colours would you use, and so on. Then comes the EXECUTION - the technical skill with your medium that you use in constructing the picture.

Now suppose we tell judges in an exhibition to mark each of those elements of the art. If you have used someone elses photograph, how many marks do you think the judge should award for Concept? And if you have copied that picture exactly, how much of the Design is yours? You might get a high score for Execution, but you should not be a prizewinner.

The other strand to any use of photos is the copyright one. It is in most circumstances illegal to copy someone elses photo without their permission and then exhibit the work. What this new rule does is to extend the idea of what is legal into what is right.

Does this mean we can't use any photos at all?
Again, what you do with your own work is up to you. But you cannot copy someone elses photo exactly and then try to win a prize in a UKCPS Exhibition with that. The key words here though are "someone elses". If you take the photo, there is no problem - it is your concept, and your design.

There is obviously a continuum here between total exact copying, through partial rough copying to no copying at all, and where the line should come that stops work being exhibited is hard to define. So we don't. We say to anyone wishing to exhibit in our exhibitions "Is this work ESSENTIALLY yours in concept, design and execution?" and we leave it up to the artist to decide that for themselves. If you have copied something exactly you should answer "No". If you have used reference photos that you did not take, it would depend on how many and how you have used them, and it would be up to you to say whether the "line" has been crossed or not. It is entirely possible, for example, for you to have a concept, and have to use several different photos as references to show you how elements of your composition should look, without copying those elements exactly. This is how the image at the top of the post was constructed. I did not have two trained salamanders that I could photograph, nor did I have photos of salamanders in exactly the positions that I wanted. I still got a - to me - pleasing work of art that was essentially mine in concept, design and execution.

But this makes it very hard for me now as I work from photos all the time!

It makes it just as hard for everyone else - and that is the point. It is fairer this way. We also think that working to these restrictions will make you a better artist - you may of course disagree. We do not believe that we are being unfair to one particular group of artists - specifically wildlife artists who work a lot from photographs. We believe that we are being fairer to everyone. We hope that you will agree.

What if I have had some help with the picture - how do I decide if the Execution element is still essentially mine?
Again we leave this to your judgement. We make a firm decision with regard to any work conducted under the supervision of a teacher and say this calls into question the execution element, so such work is disallowed. But as always it is hard to be specific. If you take your work along to show some friends in an art group meeting and they comment on it, have they helped you? Possibly. Have they helped you enough so that the execution is no longer essentially yours? You tell us. Of course, in the internet age, the meetings do not have to be physical, and there was a lot of discussion on Wet Canvas and Scribbletalk about posting work for criticism on these sites. Again, you decide whether such criticism has invalidated the work or not. If a lot of people have just said "Wow!", there is no problem. If someone has taken your work into Photoshop, played around with it, suggested some changes and you have acted on those suggestions - then there could be a problem. Is it still essentially yours?

Many other artists have blogged along similar lines to what is discussed here, and I am particularly greatful to Maggie Stiefvater, Nicole Caulfield, Gayle Mason and Katherine Tyrrell for very helpful posts that have helped us clarify what we want to achieve enormously. Gayle in particular has posted some really useful blogs recently about how to take your own wildlife photos in this country. As always, questions adressed to founder@ukcps.co.uk or to other members of the executive will be answered as fully as we can.

CP work in the news

"Primulas" Bob Ebdon 17cm x 21cm

First published "Leisure Painter" March 2008

Just a heads up that some coloured pencil work can be seen in a couple of places at the moment.

First, there is an article in the current (March) edition of "Leisure Painter" magazine that shows some ways of getting dark tones using coloured pencils. The article shows a step-by-step of a primula, using a colourway approach, grisaille, and complementary colours to get darks. Sorry to blow my own trumpet, but yes, the author of the article is me.

Then the makers and distributors of Stonehenge paper, Legion Papers, have just added a gallery to their site which shows several artists who use Stonehenge paper as their preferred support. There are a couple of UKCPS members showing work in this gallery - Arlene Steinberg and, yes, sorry, its me again!

To avoid ALL posts being about me, please get in touch with anything that you would like me to include in future blogs - any exhibitions, awards, galleries visited where CP work is on show - anything of interest to the membership in general, please tell me about it.

Janie Gildow

The UKCPS is delighted to announce that we have managed to get Janie Gildow, CPSA, to be part of our Jury for the 7th Annual Open Exhibition, sponsored by Faber Castell, in October 2008. Full details of the exhibition submission procedures will be available with the March edition of Talking Point, but for now we can reveal that Janie will be one of the panel of three jurors who will decide on which pictures get accepted into the exhibition.

Janie will be well known to most of us through her books - "Coloured Pencil Solutions" (with Barbara Benedetti Newton) and "Coloured Pencil Explorations". On her website she gives some clues as to what she might be looking for in a picture when she says:

"Good art is a result of careful planning, creative expression, strong composition, excellent craftsmanship, and a confident and complete exploration of the medium."

So - time to get the pencils out again! The deadline for submissions will be July 9th, and some other important dates can be seen on our Calendar page. Full details will be coming soon.

Current activity

OK, so it looks as though I might be able to do this. I will try to update as often as I can with anything that I think may be of interest to our members.

Today the yahoo discussion group has been talking about different surfaces, including Art Spectrum Colorfix and Tim Fisher's Fisher 400 papers. We have also been introduced to the amazing art of Ester Roi, and I have added her to our links pages.

The Executive is still debating the merits of some members having an online subscription only, and trying very hard to come up with some helpers, especially as our Local Groups organiser has now left the post. They are also preparing for the UKCPS stand at the NEC Art Live show coming up on November 8th-11th. Please do try to get along to this and say hello if you can. Our printer is now working on the next issue of Talking Point which will contain a small Christmas Present courtesy of Legion Papers.

Some more of our members are taking up the Mobtal offer of membership for a year of this Art Portal WAP oriented website - but not enough! And I know there are still 400 or so of our members who do not have their own page on the site. Please get in touch with me so we can show what ALL of our members are up to!