Colouring-in Books - A Fad?

Colouring-in books a fad?

What do you think of the recent surge in colouring books for adults. You might have tried them, I haven't. To me coloured pencils are just as good as any other painting medium. But is the use of colouring books a good thing or bad for coloured pencils?

Some coloured pencils users might think this is undermining our wonderful medium and hobby. It might be argued that colouring in someone else's design is not necessarily art in the sense creativity. There is no creativity if it is just a case of filling in the gaps. No thinking , planning, composition, working out lights and darks etc.

Think of it this way: those people who are using coloured pencils with colouring books are in fact spreading the word about coloured pencils, they could become fully fledged artists, they could become people who will appreciate art made with coloured pencils, and may even buy coloured pencil art. So its not a bad thing, coloured pencils as medium will benefit from the publicity. I just wish the media stop calling them crayons!

The only reservation I have is that the colouring books are a fad or craze, how long it will last your guess is as good as mine. What will happen when the fad has gone stale? Will people start to think of coloured pencils as an old fashioned medium? Or worse still as a beginners medium which should not be taken seriously? Or even the public might think coloured pencils are not a serious medium if people use it to colour-in books!

What do you, coloured pencils practitioners, think?

Guest blog post by Mo Awkati

UKCPS Member on LAC

UKCPS Member Julie-Ann Maguire has written a piece about her experience working on drafting film for the London Art College Blog. It can be found here. Thank you for that Julie-Ann and I wonder if any other UKCPS members would like to share their experiences of working on this surface.

Tiffany Budd - Derwent featured artist

Congratulations to UKCPS Signature Member, Tiffany Budd, who is the featured artist in the Derwent Pencils blog page: www.lovepencils.co.uk.

You can follow Tiffany's own blog by scrolling down the column on the right to the Members Blogs section, and look for the link : 'Tiffany Budd At Work'.

Maria Villioti - New blog link

Maria Villioti, a UKCPS member in Greece, has a new blog.  See the link in 'Members Blogs' (scroll down the column on the right) entitled: http://breathsofart.blogspot.com/.

The link takes you to her home page which is set out in Greek, but there is a simple to use facility which translates the page into a number of languages.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer - Web site

Greetings to Paula Kuitenbrouwer,  an overseas UKCPS member living in Antwerp, Belgium.  You can now link to her website 'Mindful Drawing' via the members blog list [right-hand column - scroll down].

Karen Middleton - New blog link

UKCPS member, Karen Middleton, has a new blog page entitled 'softly drawn'.  You can link to it directly via the Members Blogs list in the column to the right & down.

If other members have their own blog or web page and wish to have them linked-to on this page, then contact me with the address.

Maria Villioti - Competion winner

Congratulations to one of our overseas members, Maria Villioti, from Greece, who has won a competition to illustrate one of six  stories with the CP picture shown on the right.
Maria will recieve an E-Book featuring the six stories and their winning illustrations.
You can view more of Maria'swork via her blogsite using the link in Members Blogspots [down and to the right on this page]. The link to Maria's blog is the one in Greek.

Sharon Lomas - BBC Merseyside interview

MY APOLOGIES - I PUT IN THE WRONG DATE == 2nd JULY (not 2nd June!!) - now amended!

Sharon Lomas, a Liverpool artist and UKCPS member, has been invited to be interviewed on my local BBC station, Radio Merseyside (95.8 fm & DAB), on this coming Saturday (2nd July). Sharon will be helping to promote the use of coloured pencils as a media, and UKCPS nationally and locally.

The programme, hosted by Helen Jones, is 'Local History', and starts at 3pm, but will feature Sharon in a local interest spot at 5pm. Anyone outside the Merseyside receiving area can listen live online via www.bbc.co.uk/merseyside/programmes/schedules or via BBC iplayer.

I wish Sharon the best of luck, and if you wish to view some of Sharon's own work then visit her blog site (S A Lomas Pencil Art) via the Members Blogs links - down and to the right on this page.

Maria Villoti - new blog listing- AMENDED

Welcome to new UKCPS member, Maria Villoti, from Greece. She has a blogspot, a link to which you will find in the members blogs section (righthand column - scroll down).
In my original post I intimated that Maria's blog page (written in Greek) needed translation into English.
My sincerest apologies to Maria - I hadn't noticed the translation gadget on the page which enables translation into many different languages. Maria has some lovely work on display - the site is well worth the visit!

Alan

A New member's blog added

A new site has been added to the list of members blogs. Take a look at Fading Rose, the blogsite of UKCPS member, Gillian Mowbray.

Alan

Derwent News

Derwent Pencils are a valued sponsor to UKCPS, so I make no apologies for recommending a visit to their website: www.pencils.co.uk. In particular, it's well worth a look at their own blog : http://www.lovepencils.co.uk , where there is a good review of their new Inktense Blocks - solid blocks of water-soluable Inktense pigment in similar size to a pastel, and there is also a colouring Logo competition for you to enter!

If you are new to Derwent products, then click on the 'Hints & Tips' tag on the homepage for downloadable PDF files on various uses of their pencils, or similarly, click on the 'Contact Us' tag, and then click on the link to Youtube for videos of their products in use.

Alan

More Members Blogs........

Lesley Crawford, a UKCPS founder member, and former editor of the society's magazine 'Talking Point', also has a blog. Scroll down the page and take a look at Gaia Art in the members blogs list.

More of Lesley's artwork can be viewed in the Members Gallery on the UKCPS website.

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!)

Do you blog about your coloured pencil art?

Sixteen members of UKCPS now have their art blogs featured in the members' blogroll (see side column) of UKCPS News.

If you have a blog which features your coloured pencil artwork and you would like to see it in the UKCPS News blogroll - and gain a link back to your blog - this is what you need to do:

• contact the UKCPS Blogmaster - see Contact Me
• provide the name and URL of your blog and ask for it to be included in the blogroll

If you've just started blogging, it's a good idea to wait awhile before submitting your blog for inclusion so that you can see whether blogging is for you or not. Not everybody wants to continue after the first few posts.

What happens next

• A link to your blog will be included in the members' section of the UKCPS blogroll
• Your blog will also be 'followed' (using the 'follow' function on Blgger Dashboard) by UKCPS News.
  

You can also have a link to your blog included in your members gallery page. You need to contact the UKCPS websmaster to get your page changed - or you can indicate this in your email to me and I will forward your email to the UKCPS webmaster

Any queries - please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'll provide an update here of any frequently asked questions that I get.

A new look for the UKCPS Blog

Welcome to a new look for the UKCPS Blog.

The existing template was causing problems when posting images or tables providing information. It also proved to be very inflexible in terms of making any adjustments to the width of the blog to better accommodate images. The actual design (rounded corners) meant any minor adjustments in width were totally impossible.

More than 80% of UKCPS blog readers should find the "new look" blog suits them much better. These are the ones who already have screens which are 1024 pixels wide (or more!) so that the blog now fills more of their screens and has much less wasted space either side.

It's also allowed me to increase the size of the font of the text which should make it much easier to read.

Those with very old monitor screens which are only 800 pixels wide will still be able to read the blog in its entirety but may need to scroll to read all the side column.

For those who are interested, the template is called 'stretch denim' and I've changed the colours so that it echoes the blue, green and red of the UKCPS logo.

Do let me know what you think of the new look.

Check out the blogroll thumbnails

Blogger now has a function which really enhances the blogroll (list of blogs) for all blogs using the Blogger software. It now allows us to see:

• the blog title
  
• a thumbnail of the image in the most recent post
  
• the title of the most recent post
• and a note of how long ago the blog was updated

It's set up so that the most recent post is always at the top.

If you're visiting the UKCPS blog why not check out the blogroll? It's now a lot easier to see whether there is anything which is likely to be of any interest to you.

Also, if you are a UKCPS member and have a blog which is not included in the blogroll then please let me know and I'll add it in to the members' blogroll. (Note this facility is available to UKCPS members only).

This week I've added in Rachel Stirling's new blog called Fine Art In Focus.

Note: The two thumbnails in this post are from:

• Sketching the Still Life from Katherine Tyrrell - Travels with a Sketchbook in.......
• Maine Coon Cat on Pastelbord from Gayle Mason - Fur in the Paint and

A new blogmaster for the UKCPS Blog

As Bob indicated in his post on Friday, sadly he's stepping down from running the UKCPS blog, just as he indicated at the end of August that he has already retired from membership of the UKCPS Executive.

I've known Bob for quite some time now. I'm sure that very many people will agree that UKCPS without Bob being around will feel like a very different place. He will, of course, continue to be a member and will always be greatly esteemed as the Founder of UKCPS.

A new blogmaster: In future, I'm going to be the new person posting news about UKCPS and its members on this blog. My name is Katherine Tyrrell.

I've been blogging since the end of 2005 and at the AGM last year I suggested that UKCPS should consider creating a blog. I then helped Bob to set up this blog nearly a year ago. I think it's been very successful at improving online communication with members. Even CPSA have decided to get a blog now! ;)

Different roles: Many of you may already know me from one or other (or both!) of my personal blogs Making A Mark or Travels with a Sketchbook in....... (the latter having sketches in CP). What I want to do in this post about the transition is highlight the difference between the role I'll be playing on this blog and how that will be different to the person I am when creating posts on my own blogs. Not least because I still want to be able to be me on my own blogs! If I ever do feel the need to express an opinion on this blog - which won't be often - I'll indicate clearly that it's my own view and not that of the Executive or the Society as a whole.

Here are the differences.........

UKCPS Blog	My Blogs
Purpose: News about UKCPS its interests its members any thing else relevant to UKCPS	Purpose: Posts about my drawings my interests my observations my opinions
Role: Blogging is impersonal - representing UKCPS	Role: Blogging is personal - I'm me

UKCPS blogmaster: For this reason in future, I thought it best for the person running the blog to be known as the UKCPS blogmaster, rather than by name, to avoid any confusion. So that's what you'll see when I create a post or whenever I respond to a comment.

Contact me: If you want to contact me at any time, you can see the email address which relates to my role on this blog in the image at the top of this post (done like that so as to avoid spam!). So if you want to contact me that's the way to do it.

For those of you not familiar with this way of writing an email address all you need to do is substitute the @ symbol for [at] and put in a full stop where it says [dot].

Blog Housekeeping: As Bob has not been well of late, I've started to do the blogger version of a little bit of housekeeping on this blog. You'll notice a few changes in the right hand column as recent innovations by Blogger are introduced to the blog. I might even have a go at trying to get the blog to look a bit more like the website!

Blog Content: As a blogger I learned very early on that if blogs are going to be any good it's because of their content. So I'll also be talking with the Executive and interested members of UKCPS in the near future about how we can best continue to develop and improve this blog and its content.

You can comment too: You can of course tell us all what you think about UKCPS news or changes by commenting below.

This blog welcomes comments because comments are what makes this a blog rather than a noticeboard. Anybody can comment - you don't need to have a blog or a Blogger Account. (If you've got any queries please let me know)

All comments are moderated by me to make sure they are civilised and haven't wandered too far off topic - which means they may not be published straight away if I'm out or in the middle of doing something else. Spam is never published.

I've greatly enjoyed blogging since 2005 and I feel very privileged now to have been able to become the new UKCPS blogmaster. I'm looking forward to hearing your views and hope that together we can all build on the excellent foundations laid by Bob and help the UKCPS blog to continue to grow and develop to meet the needs of the society and its members.

PS If you'd like to say goodbye to Bob Ebdon as he takes leave of an active role as an officer within UKCPS why not let leave a comment on his post So Long, Been good to know ya... ?

test post

This is a test blog post. We're just checking that everything is working OK in transferring the running of this blog!