UKCPS Annual Open Exhibition 2015 - Menier Gallery, London

UKCPS Annual Open Exhbition 2015 - Menier Gallery, London
The artists have now been selected, congratulations to you all and commiserations to those who did not get selected. You can see a list of the successful artists at our website.

We hope you will be visiting the exhibition which is open from Wednesday, 6th May to Saturday, 16th May (closed Sundays). Full opening times are on the website.

There will be at least one artist in the gallery every day demonstrating coloured pencil and ready to chat about our favourite medium. Full timetable as listed below:

Wednesday 6th May - Judith Heilbronn-Crown
Thursday 7th May - Morryce Maddams
Friday 8th May - Sue Clinker and Karen Coulson
Saturday 9th May - Debi Hide
Monday 11th May - Malcolm Cudmore
Tuesday 12th May - Malcolm Cudmore
Wednesday 13th May - Morryce Maddams
Thursday 14th May - Suzy Herbert
Friday 15th May - Suzy Herbert
Saturday 16th May - Victoria Parsons

The Private View is on Wednesday 6th May at 6.30pm, if you would like an invitation please email london2015@ukcps.co.uk with your name and address. Please note, all those who entered the competition will automatically be sent an invitation.

Are you able to help??
We are still looking for helpers - can you assist with any of the following:

Stewards - we still have some gaps in our rota, if you can spare a few hours when you come to visit please contact Pat Heffer at president@ukcps.co.uk

Do you have a van (or know of a driver with a van) - we need someone who can transport our card holders and racks from a storage unit near Birmingham to London on Tuesday 5th May. Petrol costs will be reimbursed. Please contact Barbara Murray at chairman@ukcps.co.uk

Do you have any prints or pictures for our Silent Auction? This is a great way of raising funds for the society and we would appreciate any works you can offer. Please contact Pat Heffer at president@ukpcs.co.uk.

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!

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

CPSA news

This comes from our friends on the other side of the pond at the Colored Pencil Society of America:-

CPSA has exciting convention news. The 2014 convention and exhibition will be held at Daytona Beach, Florida! The hotel will be the Daytona Beach Resort, 2700 N. Atlantic Ave. (on the beach). The 22nd Annual CPSA International Exhibition will be at the Ormond Memorial Art Museum (OMAM), 78 East Granada Blvd, Ormond Beach.

At its spring meeting, the governing board toured the museum. The gallery and its beautiful, tropical grounds offer a delightful setting for the exhibition. This is an event you simply won't want to miss.

The dates for the convention are Wednesday, July 30, 2014 through Saturday, August 2, 2014. The exhibition dates are June 13, 2014 through August 25th, 2014. The prospectus with more details will be available about November 15th of this year.

CP Society of America

The Coloured Pencil Society of America has just published its list of those artists accepted for their forthcoming exhibition.  The Exhibition recieved nearly 300 entries this year.

You can view the list at:
http://cpsa.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=150

The exhibition itself (always worth looking at - the standard is usualy top grade!) can be viewed online from the CPSA website from 1st February : www.cpsa.org

The top prize is a massive $2000, and is sponsored by Prismacolor!

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

Julie Douglas wins CPSA award

Jeff George has won the Best in Show at the CPSA 17th International exhibition for the second time - and two years running! His work Life and Death is in an unusual panoramic format ( 8.5” x 32”) but that's not its only surprise which I won't spoil by revealing on this blog. I'll just suggest you look very carefully as it's very difficult to see in the size posted on the exhibition gallery site. You'll get a better view of it on his website.

Interestingly I happen to know that this work got rejected last year - but only because only one work from each member can be successful in going forward to the final exhibition. Which means in 2007 he entered two works both of which have been judged best in show in successive years.

Click this link to see all the works which won awards at the exhibition

Top award for UKCPS member

UKCPS Member Julie Douglas won $1,000 and one of the top awards - the Staedtler Award for Exceptional Merit - for Boy on a Swing.

Boy on a Swing
Julie Douglas (Ireland)
coloured pencils 15.7 x 10.2"
copyright the artist

You can see a bigger version of her work on her website - click the image to see the big version.

Julie studied graphic design and illustration and worked for 12 years as a successful illustrator working with top advertising agencies and design groups. She has also illustrated books for publishers such as Penguin, MacMillan, Mitchell Beazley etc. She now teaches art in Ireland.

Prior to this award she has also won the Association of Illustrators Award on two occasions and her work on an American Express brochure won a New York Advertising award.

You can read more about Julie on her UKCPS gallery page - but I'll be asking her to reveal more in an interview for this blog in the near future.

Julie Douglas in 17th Annual CPSA International Exhibition

Congratulations to UKCPS member Julie Douglas who, for the second year in a row, has had one of her coloured pencil portraits accepted into the Annual International Exhibition of the Colored Pencil Society of America.

Last year Julie's picture, "Dappled Son", won a $500 Award for Outstanding Recognition at the 16th Exhibition in Seattle.

Boy on a Swing - by Julie Douglas
coloured pencil
copyright Julie Douglas

CPSA yesterday announced the successful entries - in Artists and Artwork Selected for the 17th Annual CPSA International Exhibition - 2009. The exhibition is being held in Atlanta Georgia between July 9 - August 29, 2009 at the Jacqueline C. Hudgens Center for the Arts.

If any other international UKCPS members have also been successful please let me know and I'll add your names into this post.

CPSA Explore This! 5 Online Exhibition

The CPSA Explore This! 5 Exhibition and catalogue are now both online and available to view.

CPSA changed arrangements this year so that the exhibition is only online. This means that the exhibition will now run online all year until January 31 2010. It also means that the Society does not have the expense of an additional exhibition space to fund and the exhibitors do not have to fund the cost of carriage of framed art to and from the exhibition.

There are a number of pages on the CPSA website which relate to the The Explore This! exhibition. The navigation menu runs along the very bottom of the page on most pages. These are:

• The Explore This! 5 Exhibition Title/entry page
• The actual exhibition
• Details of the various awards and Award winners
• An exhibition catalogue of all the works in the list of artists. This provides details about the dimensions, the media and support used and the price of the work.
  
• More information About the exhibition
• and information About the Juror - Gwen Chanzit

There are some innovations in presentation of the exhibition online which are worth noting.

• Each award winner now gets a mini profile and a link to their website. It's very nice to be able to put a face to a name, learn a bit more about the artist and to able to see more of their work.
• The online catalogue is really great for anybody viewing online. Information about dimensions is particularly valuable as a digital image can so easily misrepresent size and this information has not previously been provided.
  
• People wishing to purchase an artwork can contact the artist via the Exhibition Director. This means that all exhibitors have an opportunity to exhibit their work on a very reputable website and sell their art online for the next year.
  

Who's in the "Explore This" exhibition?

As previously announced, as from 2009, CPSA's Explore This! exhibition is to be annual and online only with all entries being digital images. This meant that the exhibition became a much more affordable proposition to enter for anybody previously concerned about the cost of shipping work over to the USA and back.

The Exhibition Artwork will go online and the Award Winners will be announced on February 1, 2009.

In the meantime you can check out whether you can recognise any names of UKCPS members in the listing of accepted entries which was published this week.

The unique feature of Explore This! is that all entries must have some element which breaks the rules of the CPSA International Exhibition

Finally, CPSA have also announced that the 2010 CPSA Convention will be in Santa Clara County in California - just south of San Francisco. Further details are available on the CPSA blog (see below).

Links:

• CPSA Explore This! prospectus
• CPSA list of accepted entries
• Colored Pencil Society of America News - Announcements for Explore This! 5 and 2010 Convention/Exhibition

CPSA 17th Annual International Exhibition - Call for Entries #1

The Colored Pencil Society of America has called for entries for the 17th Annual International Exhibition 2009. In this post I'm going to provide the links to where you can find all the relevant information is posted on the CPSA website and blog

Then - in my second post later this week - I'll highlight some of the aspects you need to make a special note of if you would like to submit work to this open exhibition.

Remember - you don't need to be a member of CPSA to submit work to this exhibition!

The Prospectus and Exhibition Information is now posted on the website as a pdf file. The prospectus includes specifications for show entry and workshop and convention information. It's an 8 page document and needs to be read very thoroughly.

Here are the key dates for next year's calendar or wall chart!

• Closing date for entry: 11:59 p.m. (Mountain Time) 31st March 2009
• Notification of selection: 2nd May 2009
  
• Period for shipping artwork: 17th - 24th June 2009
  
• Final jury and awards selection: 1st July 2009 (telephone notification begins 2nd July)
• Exhibition dates: 9th July to 29th August 2009
• Convention dates: 29th July - 1st August 2009

Venue: The Exhibition will be held at the Jacqueline C. Hudgens Center for the Arts 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway, Bldg. 300, Duluth, Georgia 30097.

Arrangements for the exhibition and convention are hosted by District Chapter 107 Atlanta.

The Juror: Graham C. Boettcher. He is The Wm Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama

These are the relevant pages on the CPSA website which it's a good idea to bookmark:

• 17th Annual International Exibition and Convention
• Frequently Asked Questions about Exhibitions
• Frequently Asked Questions about Framing

Digital Entry: All entries must be digital and these are some documents which can help you with your digital entry.

• Step by Step Entry Using the CaFE system
• Preparing Your Digital Image Using Photoshop
• Questions Specific to Digital Terminology

Finally, this is a link to yesterday's post on the CPSA News Blog - 17th Annual CPSA Exhibition - It’s Time to Prepare Your Entry! Deadline March 31, 2009.

Do let me know if you have any queries before the next post.

CPSA exhibitions - If you'd like to see one/enter one.....

CPSA - 16th Annual Exhibition

After a spate of posts about coloured pencil exhibitions, if you've ever wondered what ALL the artwork in the CPSA exhibition looks like - you can find out!

There is an opportunity to see all the CP artwork that was exhibited in CPSA's 16th Annual Exhibition in Seattle this summer on a DVD. The CPSA are producing a DVD of all the exhibition pieces which it states will be viewable through both TV and computer monitors provided both have access to a DVD player.

CPSA are also taking overseas orders. Please note the DVD will not be available until February 2009.

This post End of 16th Annual Exhibition - Order your DVD of the show on their blog Colored Pencil Society of America News outlines what to do if you're interested.

Reminder

If you have been intending to submit work for jurying into CPSA's new online exhibition Explore This! 5 this is a gentle reminder that tomorrow (15th November 2009) is the deadline for online entries.

See Remember Deadline of 11/15/08 for Explore This! 5 Entries! for a reminder of and links to all the details.

CPSA invite contributions to Explore This! 5

Entry to the CPSA Explore This! 5 exhibition in 2009 is open to all living artists over the age of 18 regardless of geographical location.

Coloured pencil artists are likely to be interested in changes that CPSA have introduced to their Explore This! exhibition, which encourages artists to explore the use of coloured pencil in combination with a range of materials. You can read more about these in:

• Invitation for Explore This! 5 now available on the CPSA's new blog Colored Pencil Society of America News (see link in right hand column)
• the prospectus for the exhibition on the CPSA website
  

Key points are that:

• as announced on this blog at the end of August (CPSA Blog plus changes to CPSA Exhibitions) the Explore This! exhibition will in future be annual and online only
• all entries must be digital images submitted via the CaFE website
  
• all entries must have some element which breaks the rules of the CPSA International Exhibition
• acceptance into three shows within a 10 year period will earn a new signature designation, called CPX, for a CPSA member/artist
  
• the top three winners in Explore This! 5 will be invited to ship their work to the 17th Annual CPSA International Exhibition for display

All questions relating to the exhibition should be addressed to Paula Parks, CPSA Exhibition Director. Deadline for entries is November 15th 2008.

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.

Julie Douglas

Julie Douglas, "Dappled Son"

This gorgeous picture will have all members of the UKCPS pushing it in the next few weeks and months. Why? Because it is the only successful entrant into the CPSA Exhibition from a UKCPS member based this side of the pond - and I had to be careful how I phrased that as I did not want to all of a sudden annex Ireland! Many congratulations to Julie Douglas of County Clare, Eire, for achieving this year what so many have tried and failed over the past seven years, and at least we now have a toehold in the CPSA competition!

Other news: I have put up a fairly comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions guide to the UKCPS Exhibition, with what I hope are some pointers especially for overseas entrants. Please read this carefully if you are thinking - as I hope you are - of entering this year. We are trying to spot problems before they arise, which is something of a new approach for your Executive!

And finally, I hope you enjoyed my latest article in Leisure Painter magazine, in the current (June 2008) edition, encouraging you to work on different papers. I actually had a telephone call this morning from a gentleman who said "I didn't know you were such a fine figure of a man!"

Bob's bits

Another of those blogs where I just lump a few little things together to make a posting! I am conscious that I have not posted in a while, but will only disturb your in-tray if I really feel I have something of interest.

First a reminder that you should be working on your entry for our next Exhibition, entries due to Pat Heffer before July 9th, and the sooner the better as far as Pat is concerned. If you need an entry form, you can download one from here.

You may be interested to see the list of successful entrants for the next CPSA Exhibition, which is here. Perhaps what is most interesting is the long list of artists, including the past three winners, who have not been successful this year. It just goes to show that in the end this is all a matter of opinion.

Next, apologies for the fact that the UKCPS site was out of action for several hours today. I have yet to recieve an explanation from our hosts GNHosting, but at least it is up again as far as I can tell now.

Finally, a request for artists to support a worthy cause where they can. The UKCPS has a policy of only providing links from our site to other sites that have specific CP content, so when this site asked for a link I had to say no. But what they are doing is very laudable, and it would be well worth any of you clicking through and just checking out what they are trying to do. They also offer some good advice on protection of images - The Animal Artists Protection League tries to monitor the web for unlawful use of its members images. And they have a great logo!

Call for Entries for CPSA

Alistair Howie "Palm House at Kew"

Time to get your pencils out again. The call for entries has just gone out from our sister organisation, the Colored Pencil Society of America, for their main exhibition in 2008. All of the details can be found on the CPSA website, and further useful comments and analysis can be found in Katherine Tyrrell's Making a Mark Blog, so I don't really need to repeat that all here, just point out a few features.

1. Entry is Open to all, as long as you are alive and over 18!
   
2. Entry is by digital submission - there are quite complex restrictions on this, you may need to be a bit computer literate to sort this one out. If you need help, I will be glad to do what I can.
3. The definition of what kind of image is permitted has changed over previous years - they have really tightened up on copyright issues, and now insist that it must not be copied in any way from another artists work (including photographers), even from copyright free sources, or under licence, and must also not have been completed with help from another artist, in a workshop, for example.
4. We - by that I mean the UKCPS - have never had a prizewinner in this competition - so it is about time we did! In fact, as far as I am aware, only two of our members who are not US based have ever been accepted into the CPSA exhibitions - Takako Ikuta, who is a Japanese member who actually entered our first ever exhibition and travelled over here to see it, was one, and Alistair Howie from Bristol was the other. Their prizewinning entries to our first ever exhibition can be seen here, Alistair above and Takako below.
5. It can be a very expensive business sending work over and back if you do get accepted. There is a very real risk of damage or loss - several US artists have discovered this to their cost sending work to the UKCPS exhibitions. Work has to be framed and mounted to CPSA specifications, and then VERY SECURELY packed. Our own noble ParcelForce may also - apparently at whim - decide that it does not want to send your package if it is too big, leaving you at the not-so-tender mercies of UPS or Fedex. Please do not let this put you off, but check with me first that the way you want to send work will be OK. Wrapped up in a towel and brown paper - I kid you not! - does not do the job, believe me.
6. Best of luck!
   

Takako Ikuta " On a Monday Morning"