Bits and Bobs from Bob

Richard Childs, "Hope of Sepilok"

Several short pieces in this blog. Let us start with several big congratulatory cheers, with possibly more to come! First, for members Richard Childs and Jonathan Newey, who have both been accepted into the Mall Galleries Exhibition for the Wildlife Artist of the Year, run by the David Sheppard Wildlife Foundation, between 24th and 28th June this year. The final winner will be announced on the Preview Evening - we are keeping our fingers crossed for both members. Richard's piece is "Hope of Sepilok", which was a prizewinner in the 2008 UKCPS Exhibition, and which has been instrumental in raising a good sum for the Orang-utans in Borneo.

Graham Brace, "Dancing Trees"

Next, congratulations to member Graham Brace, who has a five page article in this month's (May) Artist and Illustrator magazine, with several examples of his beautiful work. Also in this magazine is a reference to the UKCPS Colour Comparison Charts, so we hope for more orders of those.

Next, a request from one of our members, Karen Coulson, to publicise her local art shop, which, despite the name, is in Lymington, Hants! Happy to do so, on recommendation of our members. This very friendly store may soon be stocking the new Luminance pencils from Caran d'Ache that are causing a stir at the moment, but it already has a good stock of Derwent and Caran d'Ache as well as some harder to find papers like the Art Spectrum Colorfix. Clicking on the picture above will take you to their site. See what Peter Weatherill, Nicole Caulfield and others think of Luminance here. While on the subject of members recommendations, if we have any members in North Queensland, Australia - and yes, we do have some in the Antipodes! - they might be interested in contacting Frieda van Aller to talk about visiting artists in the Port Douglas region.

Finally, if you have not already done so, get this book. Arlene Steinberg, known to many of us through "Scribbletalk", has written what I feel sure will become a standard in the coloured pencil world. I received my copy yesterday, and devoured it in one sitting, and am now going through it again to savour it. The best way I can sum it up is to say that Arlene does not just teach you how to become a coloured pencil artist - she shows you how to be an artist. And remember if you buy this book through the Society Book page, we benefit by a few pennies - which we can do with!

Revisions to Rules for UKCPS Exhibitions.

Many of you will be aware of the debate that has gone on recently about the rules for the 2008 UKCPS Exhibitions, in Scribbletalk, Wet Canvas, and various artists blogs, as well as in our own discussion group.

First let me personally apologise for any distress caused to members, and say that I totally accept that the Executive could have handled this better. We have learned a lot from this, and I hope that you will accept my apology and let us move forward. We had the best of intentions, but we have had no training for the job of leading a large Art organisation, so please do not be surprised if we sometimes get it wrong. What matters is that we listen and get it right eventually.

I am not going to go through all of the reasons for changes, all of the long discussions we had about the rules, and all of the concerns we heard in the various groups. There has been 48 hours of turmoil, and all of the arguments can be read at your leisure. Yesterday evening Pat Heffer, Exhibitions Director made this announcement to the Yahoo UKCPS Group:

Dear All,

I am writing in my role as the UKCPS Exhibition Director. The past 48 hours have been fraught to say the least, but I feel that a lot of good has come out of the many discussions.We have decided to amend the rules as follows:-

Conditions

The Society wishes to see work submitted that is essentially the original work of the submitting artist from concept through design to completion. The exhibition should show the compositional and drawing skills of the artists, as well as their ability to use colour from a pencil source. For this reason, submitted work must meet a number of conditions:

1. The concept design and execution of the artwork should be that of the artist, who will be asked to assert this. The artist must have taken any photograph used in its entirety for the whole work, but reference materials which contribute to the final composition can be obtained from any source, copyright laws permitting. Work cannot be submitted which has been executed in any teaching situation. No parts of work may be copied from copyrighted or published materials, without permission from the copyright holder and no images may be submitted which have been produced by drawing over a digital reproduction. Any reference material can be sourced to build up a composition, but producing an identical copy of someone else's composition regardless of whether the artist has permission or not, is not acceptable.

These rules will not come into effect until 2009, giving all of our members a chance to comply.We have considered all of your comments and feel that this is the way forward. I do hope you agree.

Tomorrow Bob and I will start writing to all of our members explaining our decisions and including a revised entry form for Bristol. Entries for Keswick can be made on the new form sending in anything you would have sent in last year, the deadline being too close for us to be able to send out new entry forms. Emails will be sent whenever possible to save on postage. Please bear with us as this is going to take a bit of time to do!

The last thing we want to do is to upset our members, after all the society exists for all of you. Please do not think that the exec has become remote and out of touch. We all work very hard to promote and encourage cp work and personally my greatest reward comes from contact with members.I look forward to hearing your comments,

Thanking you all for your input,

Pat Heffer

For the moment that is all that I have to say. We will notify all members either by e-mail or in writing, and that is a big job. We will also arrange that, from later today, non-members will be able to download an entry form from the UKCPS site for the Open Exhibition.

Just to summarise then:

• For 2008 exhibitions, 2007 rules will apply
• Members will be sent a new entry form for the Open Exhibition, either in the post or as an e-mail attachment
• Non-members will be able to download a correct entry form from the UKCPS site
• For this years Keswick Exhibition for members only, please use the form you have already, but ignore Condition 1
• New rules as specified above will apply to Exhibitions in 2009

This blog may be followed later with one outlining our reasons for change, but for now it is important to get the details out there. Any questions or comments from members, please address to the Yahoo group.