Richard Klekociuk - Drawing Prize

Our international member, Richard Klekociuk, in Tasmania, Australia won the Drawing section of the 23rd Cradle Coast Rotary Art Exhibition at Ulverstone, on Tasmania’s Northwest Coast.

Natural Graffitiscape

60 x 40 cm. Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils on Canson pastel board

copyright Richard Klekociuk

As Richard said in his blog:

This year’s exhibition attracted 250 entries vying for 10 prizes featuring painting, drawing and mixed media.

I was fortunate to win the same section last year, and was thrilled to win it a second time.

In this drawing I ‘dragged’ the natural marks and colours of the rocks down, across the lower half of the composition. I like the balance of realism and abstraction.

You can see more of Richard's work on his recently updated gallery page at the UKCPS website and his own website.

Steve Ormerod visits W Yorkshire Local Group

As reported in an earlier post, Steve Ormerod gave a demo at the UKCPS West Yorkshire Local Group in Baildon.

Steve Ormerod prepares to start his demo

Group organiser, Roy Lorrain-Smith, reports:

Twenty members and friends of the West Yorkshire local group had a treat last night (10 November 2010). Coloured pencil artist Steve Ormerod came to Baildon to give a demonstration of his way of working. He brought with him a selection of his completed coloured pencil works and talked about them, explaining how he had achieved various effects -- or where he now feels he went wrong, and how he would tackle such problems now.

He talked about various ranges of coloured pencil, notably Derwent Drawing, Graphitint, Inktense and Coloursoft, showing how he worked with them to achieve many different features, from backgrounds through flesh tones to highlights, and working both dry and wet with all of them (water soluble or not). He did not hesitate to use other media such as pastels with pencils. "I use all sorts of things to get the effects I want," he said. And showed how, with erasers to improve texture, and the wrong end of a paint brush for whiskers -- animal or human. We could also see that one at least of his palettes had been promoted from making ice cubes in someone's freezer, and he revealed that as revenge one of his best watercolour brushes had been briefly commandeered by the pastry cook.

He was informative and witty, and the evening was a great success. We all had great fun.

Hello and Thank You

Hello from your new, temporary, blogmaster - Liz Ridley. I will be, for now, dealing with the blog posts so please contact me at ukcpsblog1@gmail.com with any cp or UKCPS news you would like to see here.

Many thanks to Katherine for creating and maintaining such a fantastic blog and I am very grateful for her recent help in the handover.

More newsworthy posts should be arriving soon - this post is mainly a test for me to check that everything works.

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