So Long, Been good to know ya...

Takako Ikuta "On a Monday Morning"

It seems appropriate that my last post should take me right back to the beginning of the Society - but more of that in a moment! First, as you will have gathered, a very worthy replacement for the managing of the UKCPS blog has been found in Katherine Tyrrell, who I am sure will do a much better job than me. She will introduce herself in the next post. My health is still not good, but initial investigations have shown that I do not appear to have the heart problem I thought I may have. When your father dies aged 45, you tend to worry over these things! My biggest problem at present though is that I am depressed and have not put pencil to paper fruitfully since last June. I don't know when or if I will do so again.

Anyway, before I ride off into the sunset, just time for a few things, starting with congrats from me to our President Ann James Massey SWA, KA, CPSA, UKCPS and member Jean Canter PPSGFA, UKCPS, both of whom have been juried into the ING Discerning Eye exhibition. Then I have just seen a copy of the CPSA magazine "To The Point", which contains pieces by myself and Katherine that the CPSA used to comment on the recent discussions about use of photos. Which I do not intend to get drawn into again. Talking of drawing, the October edition of Leisure Painter magazine (out now) contains the third in my series of four articles, this time about using tools such as a blender, embossing tool and the Derwent eraser.

And 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! When their website is launched - hopefully next month - I will ensure Katherine features it. At present they only have 22 members, but they are up and running. I remember what that feels like, and wish them all the luck in the world. Well done Takako - I hope you know what you have let yourself in for!

Thanks to all who have helped make this Society what it is today, to all who have supported me personally, and I leave you with a song:

Of all the money that ere I had, I spent it in good company
And of all the harm that ere I've done, alas was done to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit, to memory now I cannot recall
So fill to me the parting glass...

Goodnight and joy be with you all.

More Bits

I apologise for posting infrequently. As I have said, I have health problems, and actually my wife has health problems as well, and I would prefer someone else to take over this blog as soon as possible as I have neither the time nor the enthusiasm that this deserves. However, a couple of things have forced me into blogging again.

First congratulations to Gayle Mason for becoming a full member of the Society of Feline Artists. This is a juried position, but I have no doubt the jury found it an easy decision in Gayle's case.

Second, following some discussion of photo use on the Yahoo group recently, I refer everyone to Katherine Tyrrell's extremely interesting and informative blog post about what appears to be possible copyright infringement at the American Watercolour Society Exhibition. If you get the chance, read through the links from this post, especially the thread at Wet Canvas. Please note that copying from photos is an issue that it seems ALL art societies are having to come to grips with, and is not confined to the UKCPS.

CPSA Blog plus changes to CPSA Exhibitions

Thanks, as so many times before, to Katherine Tyrrell for a heads up on this one.

The CPSA has made announced details of its calendar for 2009, launched a CPSA blog - we beat them to that one folks! - and announced that the "Explore This!" mixed media with CP exhibition will in future be online. It is easy to see which way the CPSA is moving, and the reasons should be pretty obvious also. Probably something the UKCPS needs to consider?

I should also note here that I have resigned from the Executive of the UKCPS - with my ongoing health problems, I am afraid I could no longer take the hassle. I never intended this to be a life sentence anyway. So please, if you have any comments about UKCPS policy, or matters that you would like to raise with the Exec, this is not at present the place to do so. Please use the yahoo group, or e-mail direct.

I am continuing to maintain this blog and the website, but these posts will become vacant at the AGM in October, so anyone interested in taking these on, please make yourselves known to the Exec.

Some submission questions

A comment on a previous post is worth a detailed reply to everyone, so here is the comment from Felicity Grace, and my reply:

Bob, I'm interested in your comment about nursing artists through the procedure. As it was my first time submitting, I was quite nervous about doing it right and what I might be doing wrong - perhaps you could write about the questions that arose so that we can all learn more? I had doubts about the quality of my scan (it never looks like the original - do judges take this into account? -but is it allowed, for instance, to enhance it if it actually looks closer to the original?, the amount of info required (bio and description) and whether asking too many questions would affect the outcome - in particular, I didn't want to look as if I was actually being pushy, trying to influence the process or just being stupid! Hunting for info at Scribbletalk was fruitless as most artists seemed to be veterans and therefore there was no discussion about the nitty gritty. Any chance of a 'submitting for dummies' post or perhaps something similar put into the files at the Yahoo group site?

Hi Felicity,

This comes up every year, and we try to have an article in "Talking Point" prior to submission about how best to do this. Just checking back, we seem to have missed that this year, so I will try to make sure something is included for next time.

To answer your questions immediately - judges can only judge the scan they are given, and cannot compare it with the original. They can't see the original. It is acceptable to make the scan look more like the original, by adjusting contrast, levels, colour cast in e.g. Photoshop, but is not acceptable to "improve" it beyond the original. The original may be rejected if it is found that the scan gave an unfair impression of it to the jury. All judging for prizes has so far been done by viewing the originals as they are hung in the gallery, but of course if your scan/photo is not good, it might not get that far.

The jury will never know what questions you have asked, how many phone calls you made to Pat, or how much you stressed over the entry. They will just judge what is put in front of them. One reason why we have three members of the jury is that this gives a fairer result - if a judge has a particular interest in portraits for example, he/she may look more favourably on these - or judge them more harshly! With three jurors, this is balanced out, we hope.

Where Pat did have some problems were with some artists who had sent poor photos - poorly lit, out of focus or at angles that distorted the picture - and with some artists who sent printouts of scans that had been folded or had become crumpled in the post. Each entry has to be copied three times to be sent to the jury members who are often on opposite sides of the globe. If the entry has creases across it, this is bound to be picked up and duplicated in the scanning process. Hence the comment about Pat ironing some entries before scanning them for the judges. By far the safest and most accurate and easiest way to submit, as far as Pat is concerned, is to send in a scan on a disc. Pat just needs then to print three copies of this at the size that she chooses, to fit on an A4 sheet. As long as the artist is happy with their scan, this should give the best result, as any other submission has to be re-scanned before being printed, and more errors are bound to creep in.

I am not surprised that there was no much discussion of this on Scribbletalk as that site is msotly populated by US artists and their submission process - see below - was very different to ours. There are many ways of judging whether pictures get into an exhibition. The most common is that you have to physically take the framed picture along to a panel of judges and let them see it there and then. By far the fairest method - but also a heck of a lot of work, often for just a disappointment. And not very green!

While we are on this - what do members think of the submission process chosen by the CPSA this year? Every entrant had to upload their entries onto a secure website, and the judge viewed them all on a monitor. To me this is very fair, and quite simple. And it certainly is a LOT less work for Pat, and a LOT cheaper. But is our membership computer literate enough for us to go that route?

Hope this answers your questions Felicity, and I am sure that Pat would be happy to give more details any time - except she is on a well deserved holiday at present!

CPSA Results and UKCPS Success!

Julie Douglas "Dappled Son"

Many congratulations to Julie Douglas for becoming, to my knowledge, the first UK based member of the UKCPS to win an Award in the annual CPSA exhibition. Julie's picture, "Dappled Son", won a $500 Award for Outstanding Recognition - well done Julie! You can see the rest of the prizewinners here.

Julie actually flew out to Seattle when she heard that she was an award winner, so I am hoping that she will tell us all about it when she returns.

More CP Success

Janie Pirie - Strawberries

It is always great to hear of our members having some success with coloured pencils, so we are delighted to report that Janie Pirie won a Silver Gilt Medal for her 8 coloured pencil works showing soft fruits at the RHS Show that was part of the Gardener's World Live Show at the NEC in Birmingham in June. She was the only artist there showing coloured pencil works, and caused quite a stir. Well done Janie!

Praise also due to Gayle Mason, who had a work accepted into the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art on the Wirral for the second year running. Katherine Tyrrell has an extensive blog about this here and Gayle has her own blog, "Fur in the Paint", here.

Please let me know if you have had any success yourself with coloured pencil works - the more the merrier!

Some more bits

Richard Childs - "Out to Grass"

Richard is doing particularly well at present - his image "Out to Grass" has just won First place in the latest "From my Perspective" show run by Ann Kullberg, against some really stiff competition by famous CP artists, and has also been chosen by the Michael Elliott Trust "Freshfields" Donkey Sanctuary to help in their fund-raising. Richard will be at a Christmas Show at Buxton, Deryshire, for the Sanctuary, on December 13th, along with several donkeys - and Rolf Harris.

Other bits - another stockist of Prismacolor pencils has surfaced, from amongst our own members. Sonia Bowmar-Scothern, of 1buy1 Pencils based in Northampton writes:

I have the whole colour range of Prismacolor premier pencils in stock at the moment and have just started to sell a few Prismacolor Verithins. I have a few Karisma pencils listed on ebay also and over 100 (at a rough guess)not listed plus around 50 on their way. I also have a few coloured pencil art books listed and on order. Titles include Coloured Pencil Pocket Palette and the complete Colored Pencil Book. I can also get Prismacolor sets at a very good price

Her (low-budget) website is here and her e-bay page is here.

Next, some more good news from Derwent. I have been involved in the development of a new accessory that Derwent will be releasing on September 1st - their very own battery-operated eraser. I can honestly say that I like this a lot, it has a long chunky eraser that can be shaped, a powerful motor, a good carrier system that is not too fiddly to get at and lots of replacement erasers. The price is right too, at a RRP of £2.99p, with 30 replacement erasers for £0.99p. I think this one will fly off the shelves!

Finally, we just wanted to say how pleased we are about the entries for this year's Exhibition. We have had entries from almost 50% more artists, from 11 countries, and the total number of entries are 30% up on last year. Should be good news for the quality of the Exhibition! Great thanks are due to Pat Heffer, who has almost nursed some artists through our submission procedure, even going to the extent of ironing creases out of entries! This should not have been neccessary, but we do thank her for her "above and beyond the call of duty" efforts. The entries will be very soon with the judges. Best of luck to all!