Notice of upcoming AGM

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The Annual General Meeting of the UK Coloured Pencil Society will take place:--

On:      SUNDAY 19TH OCTOBER 2014
At:       THE MAC CENTRE [MAC Birmingham]
CANNON HILL PARK
BIRMINGHAM
B12 9QH
                        Commencing at:  11.45 am
Location
MAC is located in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, opposite the County Cricket Ground on Edgbaston Road, off Pershore Road (A441) and Bristol Road. (A38). Free parking available in Queens Ride, Cannon Hill Park (owned by Birmingham City Council).  The Centre is served by a number of buses from Birmingham City Centre including 1, 35, 45, 47, 62 and 63.
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Proposed Agenda (subject to amendment)

Apologies for absence
Minutes of last meeting – 24 November 2013
Matters Arising
President’s Comments
Chair’s report
Secretary’s report
Treasurer’s report
Exhibitions report
Regional exhibitions
Publications
Internet Reports (Web, Blog and Facebook)
Executive Committee – election of members
Any other business

In addition to the AGM, extra events have been arranged which members are welcome to attend.  The full programme for the day is as follows:

10.30 to 11.30             CP demonstration by Malcolm Cudmore
11.45 to 1.45               AGM
1.45 to 2.30                 break for lunch
2.30 Onwards             CP workshop (Artist to be advised)

Any Other Business Items for inclusion in ‘Any Other Business’ should be notified to the Secretary in writing, or by email, to arrive not later than Saturday, 4th October 2014

Election to the Executive Committee The Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer of the Society stand for re-election at each AGM.  In addition, vacancies exist within the Executive Committee to which members can nominate themselves or others (with their consent).  Nomination forms can be obtained from the Secretary on receipt of a stamped & self-addressed envelope, or via email on request, and must be completed and returned by Friday 19 September 2014.

Constitution   A copy of the UKCPS Constitution can be obtained from the Secretary on receipt of a stamped & self addressed A4 envelope, or will be sent as a Msoft Word (.docx) file on request.

Contact:          UKCPS Secretary, 32 Noctorum Dell, Prenton, Wirral, CH43 9UL
                        Email: secretary@ukcps.co.uk
__._,_.___

12th 'World of Coloured Pencil' Exhibition at Keswick

Venue: The Cumberland Pencil Museum, Keswick, CA12 5NG

Saturday 27th September - Saturday 8th November 2014

Free entry open to all UKCPS members only, 24 pictures chosen by ballot. Pure coloured pencil or mixed media with coloured pencil as the main medium.

Closing date for entries 17th August 2014.

Full details here. 

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....

2014 Open Exhibition Shortlist Results

The shortlist results for the 2014 Open Exhibition are out. Please check your email to see if you have been accepted. You should receive an email either way to confirm. Good luck!

Winter 2014 Newsletter

The UKCPS Winter 2014 Newsletter is out now. Please check your email boxes or head over to the UKCPS website to download the pdf.

UKCPS Questionnaire

In the recent Talking Point, volume 13, you would have found a questionnaire asking for your thoughts on the UKCPS. A number of these have now been returned but we would love to hear from more of you. So, c'mon, get them filled in and returned - this is your chance to voice your opinions, thoughts and mutterings about the UKCPS. What would you like to see more of? Where do you think we could improve? What do we do well?

Don't miss your opportunity to get involved and have your say! It'll take you 5 minutes and the cost of a stamp but mean a lot more than that to the UKCPS.

Judging Process for the UKCPS Exhibition

For your information - 

Selection is anonymous and made by three independent judges. Our President Pat Heffer who based  the selection process on the original method instigated by our founder Bob Ebdon is most concerned that anyone should  for one minute consider the process to be biased in any way, so we are explaining exactly what happens to your entries once they are received by Liz Ridley, to allay any concerns.

The judges this year are:
Ann Kullberg - US Coloured Pencil Artist
Steve Pill - Editor, Artists & Illustrators Magazine
Paul Bartlett RBA RBSA - Artist and Full Member of the RBSA.

 The full process is as follows:
1. All entries are received by Liz Ridley who checks that the correct entry fee has been paid, the work has not previously been hung in one of our exhibitions and the entry form has been completed correctly.

2. All pictures are given a number. The judges are sent a spreadsheet with all the pictures listed, giving the picture number, title and size, together with a link to a slideshow where they can view all the pictures with, once again, just the number, title and size, no artist’s name being provided. Thus the whole process is totally anonymous and no artist can be favoured by the judging panel.

3. The judges score each picture marks out of 100. The scores are added together so a perfect picture would score 300. A decision would have already been made by the executive as to how many pictures can be hung at each gallery so the applicable number with the highest score will be selected for exhibition. For example, this year we received approx. 240 pictures for judging and we will be hanging about 80 pictures (dependent on how many are above the cut off score –( it may be 78 or 79) so about a third will be successful.

4. The successful pictures are then linked back to the artists who will be told of the result.

Most societies have only one judge to select the successful pictures and this can therefore give a rather biased result, but using three judges has been shown to give a much more varied exhibition, although it entails a lot more work for the executive member dealing with the entries.
We hope that this explanation has now satisfied our members that the selection process for our Open International Exhibitions is totally fair and unbiased.

Liz Ridley, Treasurer and Exhibition Assistant
Pat Heffer, President

New Editor over at Talking Point!

Hello all,

I would like to quickly introduce myself as the new Editor :)

I am putting together the next issue of TP. If any of you have anything you would like me to put into TP however small pleases can you let me have it ASAP. Even if it does not go in this issue it will go in further issues as I am stockpiling just incase!

*****MEMBERS GALLERY*******

Please send me your pictures in JPEG format. There is no theme this issue apart from introducing yourself and your art. So send in the image that best represents you and what you like to do. No nudity I am afraid though, even if life drawing. I don't wish to get into trouble by the magazine going on a top shelf ;)

*****CRITIQUE*****

Would anyone like their work critiqued by an established artist? Send in a picture of your work and it's description including what you have used and on what you drew it on. Also what you fought with or was successful on. And importantly about you.

******LETTERS TO BARB*****

Send in your letters to the chair please

****** WHATS ON*******

Please let me know what is going on in your area, maybe it's is an exhibition, craft fair, lessons or a group. Reference gathering opportunities are always useful as are competitions etc

If you can think of anything else please do let me know and forgive my spelling and grammatical errors I am typing this on my iPad in bed before I get up for my first art group/lesson this morning and If I don't turn the heating on early they shall all freeze!

Have a good day

Judith

Editor of TP

Talking Point Volume 13: December 2013

Volume 13 of the Society's quarterly newsletter, Talking Point, is now out. Cover art is by US coloured pencil artist John Smolko with a dedicated feature inside. You will also find a Member Survey inside which we hope you will complete and return as soon as possible.

UKCPS - Notice of AGM

UK Coloured Pencil Society AGM

 

NOTICE is hereby given that the UKCPS Annual General Meeting will be held on:

 

Sunday 24th November 2013 at 11am at the MAC Centre, Birmingham, B12 9QH. For map and directions - click here.Your committee hopes that you will be able to attend and look forward to seeing you at the meeting.You can see the AGM documents by logging in at the members section at the UKCPS website or going direct by clicking on the links below:

 

Agenda  ~  Nomination form for Executive Committee  ~  Draft Constitution 

 

Please send any queries or items for the agenda to our Secretary, Will Johnson, at secretary@ukcps.co.uk. 

'The Artist' magazine

The August edition of 'The Artist' magazine (in the shops now!) features a fine article about the UKCPS, its aims, and its membership.

The magazine is always a good one to read, and this issue also features:
 

• Mariusz Kaldowski finds painting inspiration to paint in his garden
• Paint your own holiday postcard with Martin Taylor
• Jake Winkle advises on shadow colour and simplification
• Vivien Donald talks to artist Peter Messer
• Read a guide to supports for pastels from Robert Dutton
• Barry Herniman continues his pictuesque tour of the Wye Valley
• Masterworks looks at The Cliffs at Étretat by Claude Monet
• Jackie Simmonds reports on PanPastels
• How to find the right colour with Tony Williams
• Barry Freeman paints on the South Downs using water-mixable oils
• Product report on Derwent Skintones Pastel Pencils by Ian Sidaway
• Soraya French recommends earth colours
• Jackie Simmonds reports on the growing trend - a painting a day
• Masterclass with Charlotte Sorapure
• Robin-Lee Hall advises on composition for portraiture
• Oliver Lange reports on the ING Discerning Eye exhibition

Graham Brace - in the news

Graham Brace, UKCPS member and a well-known CP artist, is chuffed to bits at the moment, and all because he is appearing as one of ten coloured pencil artists featured in the latest edition of one of France's premier art magazines, 'Practiques des Arts'.

The March edition of the magazine is promoting coloured pencil as an art medium, and features 10 international CP artists, of which Graham is the only UK representative, within its monthly 'Portfolio' section.

One of the other UKCPS artists featured is Ann Kulberg, the well-known American artist, and authoress of some excellant books on colour pencil art.

A little bit of good news from Japan

As I write, the ongoing situation in Japan is terrible. Good to hear then, that UKCPS friend, and founder of the Coloured Pencil Society of Japan, Takako Ikuta, is safe and well in Osaka. The best wishes of UKCPS go to her, and to the people of Japan, at this time.

Chat Room meeting!

For UKCPS members:
A reminder that Forum members will be meeting in the chat room tonight at 7pm GMT.

The chatrom is a good resource if you need instant advice on CP matters - or even if you just want to chat about the weather!!

The Forum (and hence the chatroom) is open to all UKCPS members, but you have to register with your name and membership number via the UKCPS website: www.ukcps.co.uk (click on Yahoo Forum).

Alan

The Coloured Pencil Experience!

Because of the success of previous 'Coloured Pencil Experience' workshops in Somerset, Pauline Longley is now taking bookings for three more workshops in the South West (She's a glutton for punishment!).

1) Somerset: 12 March at Mark, near Burnham-on-Sea, with Bev Lewis & Pauline. Only 4 places left.

2) Devon: 26 March at Collerton St Mary, Paignton, with Juliet Eden, Ann Roberts, & Pauline. 9 places left.

3) Dorset: 16 April at Holt, Wimborne, with Karen Coulson & Pauline. 12 places left.

These workshops are an ideal chance to indulge in a day with 'coloured pencils', especially if you've never tried them before (you don't have to be a member of UKCPS to take part!). The worshop includes demos, slide shows, helpful critiques, step-by-step drawing, and much more.

UKCPS members: £10, non-members: £15

Email Pauline at: pauline@paulinelongley.co.uk for more information and application forms.

Would you be interested in attending a similar workshop in your area? Contact Pauline for further information.

Tiffany Budd - Exhibition success!

Many UKCPS members will be familiar with the works of Tiffany Budd, http://www.tiffanybudd.co.uk/ and will wish her well with her current exhibition held at Newlands House School in Twickenham. The school has a brand new art gallery called 'the Vinery', and they asked Tiffany if she would exhibit some of her pencil drawings in order to raise the awareness of pencil as a medium for their art students.


Say's Tiffany: "The Head of Art was most interested in my glass and realist work, and I have some 'Fractured' work in it too. They also wanted some pictures to sell to pupils and parents, so for this I did some drawings of ballet shoes and marbles. They have been selling like hot cakes!! "


Tiffany has also sold some botanical drawings, and one of strawberries. The exhibition runs until the 29th January 2011. See also the link to Tiffany's own blog from this page, and the Members Galleries on the UKCPS site.

New Blogmaster - an introduction

Greetings viewers - my name is Alan McMahon, and, in a [rare?] moment of madness, I have volunteered to undertake the role of Blogmaster for the UKCPS. Many thanks must go to Liz Ridley, the previous occupant of this seat, who has worked hard and done much juggling of her spare time in order to keep the blog going whilst also acting as UKCPSWebmaster.

This is my first blog - ever! so I hope that regular readers will forgive me my errors and omissions in the coming weeks as I seek to settle-in to the new role.

That's me above, and I apologise for the 'orrible mug-shot , but it was the only half decent picture I could find! Please don't use it to scare the kids!

Alan

UKCPS Open International Exhibition 2011

2011 marks the tenth anniversary of the UKCPS and we want to make the 2011 exhibition a bigger and better celebration of both coloured pencils and our Society than ever before. Generous sponsorship by Faber Castell’s UK distributors, West Design, means that we have the opportunity to have a much larger event in a prime location, opposite Westminster Abbey in London. The venue is the Methodist Central Hall which some of you may know from the Botanical Society’s exhibitions. As well as being conveniently placed and easy to reach at the heart of London, the venue has sufficient space for the Society to do much more alongside the Annual Exhibition to celebrate coloured pencils and our Society’s tenth birthday. The event is a three-cornered one;

• Faber Castell, themselves celebrating their 250th anniversary, will be displaying their full size pencil sculptures and a range of products for sale
• Speight of the Art Foundation will be running workshops for children
• UKCPS Annual exhibition.

There is a full programme of workshops, details of which can be seen on the website, and we also want as many demonstrators as possible and people who could help out, supervise the “have-a-go” facilities and act as stewards. Helpers may sell their goods, with commission to the Society.

Members, please apply to Pat Heffer (exhibitions@ukcps.co.uk) if you are able to offer help in any way - the more helpers we have the less the load for individuals.

Everyone start thinking now and preparing your innovative coloured pencil masterpieces and note there will also be a separate mixed media class (predominantly coloured pencil work). Full details and entry forms are now available on the website.

UKCPS Awardwinner in "Simply the Best" exhibition at NEC

Sue Clinker has had a coloured pencil picture accepted for the 'Simply the Best' Competition which will be exhibited at the Art Materials Live event at the NEC in Birmingham - where UKCPS also has a stand this week (4th - 7th November 2010).

The competition is sponsored by the Leisure Painter and The Artist magazines.  30 finalists have been selected to have their work exhibited at the show where visitors will vote for a 'People's Winner' and the works will be featured in Leisure Painter magazine in 2011.

Old Blue Eyes by Sue Clinker

This was my first attempt at a 'human' using coloured pencils back in 2008 and I can see lots of things I'd do differently now ... but we never stop learning do we? 

My picture is 'Old Blue Eyes' (attached) which was awarded Reserve Best in Show at the UKCPS World of Coloured Pencil exhibition (Cumberland 2008) - it was entitled 'Eye of the Beholder' then.

You can see more of Sue's work on her website www.sueclinker.co.uk or her blog Sue Clinker

UKCPS at Art Materials Live 

Visit the UKCPS Stand at Art Materials Live, National Exhibition Centre, 4-7th November 2010

A Birthday and a Goodbye

Today is my last day as blogmaster and this is my last post on UKCPS News. 

I've been responsible for writing the blog posts for UKCPS News since September 2008 when I took over from Bob Ebdon, the Founder of the UKCPS.

I'd like to take this opportunity to recap where this blog came from and what it has achieved to date - and that's partly because it was my idea in the first place!

At the 2007 AGM, I suggested it was time for UKCPS to think about creating a blog with a view to (1) improving online communication with UKCPS members and (2) broadcasting news about UKCPS and coloured pencils to an audience beyond UKCPS members - all with a view to fulfilling all the main aims of the Society:

• to promote coloured pencils as a fine art medium
• to support artists who use coloured pencils
• to educate artists and the public in general about coloured pencils

At the time of the meeting, the Executive was a little reluctant to make a commitment, however Bob soon saw the point and created the blog a short while later in October 2007 - which of course means that this blog is now three years old!

UKCPS News Achievements

In the last three years, UKCPS News has achieved the following:

• 167 blog posts in three years
• 255 subscribers from all over the world - who get an email every time the blog is published or otherwise read the blog in their feedreader
• an awful lot of visitors.  Since it started three years ago there have been 38,892 unique visitors to UKCPS News.  My records for the last two years show there have been well over 26,000 visitors who have generated some 44,000 page loads.  As always the peaks have come in October round about the time of the Annual Exhibition when lots of visitors are keen to see the images of the prizewinners - and to find out who won what.

UKCPS News: Pageloads and Unique Visitors October 2008-October 2010

New Initiatives

New initiatives that have proved popular during my time as blogmaster have included:

• a suite of posts covering every aspect of the UKCPS Annual Exhibition - from prizewinners to the volunteers who help make it happen
• the publication of all the names of artists accepted into the Annual Exhibition.  This has become one of the most popular posts on the blog and always gets a big audience each year.
• more publicity for the activities of members at a local level - especially those running local groups and those demonstrating coloured pencils
• posts featuring individual members when they have achieved something particularly meritorious as a coloured pencil artist.  This has helped raise the awareness of just how many coloured pencil artists are now being selected for and winning awards in multi-media exhibitions.
  
• the development of the blogroll.  This now provides a link to every UKCPS member who has a blog about their coloured pencil art and news of their latest post
• the inclusion of the Link Within widget.  At the bottom of every post, this highlights past posts which are related in topic terms to an indvidual post.  This in turn helps people to explore the archive of relevant posts as well as reading the latest one.

So - all in all - it feels like UKCPS News has been a very worthwhile exercise to date in terms of the benefits it has brought to the promotion of coloured pencil.

I'm now stepping down from the role of blogmaster for a few reasons, two of which relate to a couple of major projects I've had in mind for a while.  One of which involves a lot of writing!  If you're interested, all will become clear in the next couple of months or so and you can find out more in due course in my usual home over at Making A Mark.

In the meantime, there's now a vacancy for a blogmaster....so I hope it will only be a short gap before somebody is again writing about the next major UKCPS activity (which is Art Materials Live at the NEC - see the side column), what the local groups have been getting up to, who's won a prize in which exhibition, who's demonstrating where, who's written a relevant book etc etc.

There'll be a new email address in due course if you have any news.  In the meantime, if you want to highlight anything which is suitable for the blog please contact Liz Ridley - webmaster@ukcps.co.uk

Katherine Tyrrell UKCPS
UKCPS Blogmaster (now retired!)