South West Society of Botanical Artists

South West Society of Botanical Artists

To all UKCPS artists,
especially those living in the West Country,

Linda Nicholls is organising on behalf of the Society of Botanical Artists, a 3 night visit to the Lake District where they have been invited by Derwent to visit their factory and Pencil Museum, with an optional full day workshop.

This will be in March 2015 (date to be confirmed), staying half board at a 4* hotel with coach travel from Exeter via the M5 and M6. 

The cost will be approximately £280.

If interested please communicate with Linda at this email address:

pelisande@btinternet.com

UKCPS Dales Local Group

UKCPS Dales Local Group are holding a joint exhibition at the Blue Light Gallery, Little Market Place, Masham, North Yorkshire, HG4 4DY, from Saturday 31st May to Friday 27th June, 2014. The members exhibiting are Lesley Sharman UKCPS, Amy Horton UKCPS, Tony Brown, Maureen Oates and Niki Firmin.

There will be around 50 CP/mixed media pictures on show and for sale, as well as some "crafty" items they have produced.

South Wales Group

UKCPS Member Steve Evans has set up a new group meeting at his studio in Port Talbot once a month. So far there are 3 members meeting up, including Steve, sharing tips, sharing materials and just feeding off each others' experiences and knowledge, but they would very much love to have others join them. If you are interested in joining them, please email Steve at e-ban@hotmail.co.uk.

If you would like to highlight your own group please don't hesistate to send the blogmaster an email with details. These kind of groups are a wonderful way to work with other artists and expand your knowledge and creativity.

Wirral Pencil Group

The Wirral Pencil group are a collection of amateur artists who get together every couple of months or so on a Saturday afternoon as a 'Try Pencils' session open to non-members and friends.   We are looking for a CP artist willing to do either a half day demonstration, or alternatively, a full day workshop, on a Saturday in February.  Numbers would probably be 15 to 20, in a spacious church hall in Irby, Wirral.

As an aside to the above, members may have missed a paragraph in my report to the Society AGM which read:

 

DEMONSTRATORS

One way in which the society can assist both local groups, and also its professional or semi-professional members, is by maintaining a database of those artists willing to provide demonstrations or workshops for local groups, together (if possible) with some indication of fees charged.  Any members willing to give demonstrations or workshops are asked to contact the Local Groups Co-ordinator who will provide a contact form for completion.

Please feel free to contact me about either of the above.

Alan McMahon

localgroups@ukcps.co.uk

West Yorks Local Group

Our man Michael Maguire, Editor of the UKCPS Newsletter, made a visit with his wife to the recent Exhibition run by the West Yorkshire local group based in Baildon: -

Many congratulations to the West Yorkshire Group on their first ever local exhibition which ran between 23 September and 5 October 2013 at Baildon Library .

 

My wife and I were highly delighted to see a fine collection and good standard of CP work.  We were especially pleased to quite literally bump into Norma Hall and her husband whilst we were taking notes and I was snapping merrily away! My apologies if I confused Norma about why we were there. I did give her the opportunity to be included in a photograph of her lovely rendering "Our Daily Visitor", but I gather she was a little overwhelmed by what she thought was a local news reporter for the Telegraph & Argus. I'm quite thrilled to have been mistaken for the paparazzi!

 

A female German tourist was also taking an interest in the exhibition and she asked about the type of pencils and supports. She thought many of them were watercolour so I explained there may have been water soluble images among them. Baildon Librarian, Deborah confirmed that there had been quite a steady flow of visitors milling around the display.

 

All in all, it was a brilliant first show for this local group and we look forward to seeing the next one. Well done!

 

Michael Maguire

Associate & Editor of UKCPS the Newsletter

Regional exhibitions

There has been much discussion recently on the UKCPS yahoogroups forum regarding the difficulties and costs of getting pictures to and from exhibitions.  It would appear that many members are put off entering exhibitions (including the Society's exhibitions) because of the postage or transport costs.

One of the options discussed by the Exec has been the possibility of helping to organise regional exhibitions in co-operation with UKCPS local groups. Pauline Longley and Bev Lewis are already looking to organise one in the Somerset/Wiltshire general area.

If you are a member of a local group (either UKCPS or not!) and wish to put forward some ideas for a regional exhibition of CP art, please get in touch and we will try to carry it forward, and examine ways in which the UKCPS can assist.

Alan  (wearing my other hat!)

localgroups@ukcps.co.uk

New Art Group in Chesterfield

There is a new art group in formed in Chesterfield.  No details yet, but get in touch with Pauline Longley and she will pass on the information.  pauline@paulinelongley.co.uk

New local group - Keswick area

Zoe Ginty, a UKCPS member, and one of the staff at the Pencil Museum in Keswick, has been in touch with news of a local coloured pencil group just starting in the Keswick (North Lakes) area :--

Hia everyone!
A new local pencil art group is starting up in Cumbria on Saturday 21st January. We have been lucky enough to have had lots of interest in our group, so will be holding it at the Quaker Meeting House (near Booths Supermarket) in Keswick rather than at the Pencil museum education room, as previously planned.
Free parking is available at the Pencil Museum, so please ask at the Museum reception and you will be given a parking permit for the session(10am to 2pm). It will take place on the third Saturday of each month, at the small cost of one pound per person.
Everyone is welcome,so please bring your pencils, paper and enthusiasm for a session of drawing, experimentation, show, tell and some demonstrating with like minded pencil art fans.
Look forward to meeting you !!
Please contact us for more details.....
Zoe Ginty (you may know me from the Pencil Museum) 07843416183 and Barbara Murray (our very own Chairman) chair@ukcps.co.uk

Robin Borrett & East Leake group

Readers are referred to my blogpost of 9 June
regarding the work of Robin Borrett's East Leake
group who worked to produce a composite copy
of the "Experiment With an Air Pump", by
Joseph Wright of Derby

The finished picture, comprising 28 seperate A4 pieces is shown on the right. It measures 5 x 4 ft
(1500 x 1200 mm).

The picture helped to raise £280.00 for the Air Ambulance, and for Help For Heroes.

Well done to Robin and his group!

Robin Borrett - East Leake Carnival

Readers may be aware that last year UKCPS Silver Member, Robin Borrett, organised his art group in East Leake to produce a local version of 'The Last Supper' using the faces of art group members as the participants.
This year the group are doing their own version of Joseph Wright's 'Experiment with an Air Pump', and the finished drawing, made up from individual A4 sections painted by members of the group, and measuring 5ft x 4ft, will be on display at the East Leake Carnival on 25th June.
Robin's group use the occasion to raise funds for the Air Ambulance, and for Help For Heroes.
The exhibition can be seen at the Methodist Church, Main Street, East Leake, Loughborough, LE12 6PG, from 3pm to 6pm on the day.

Workshop at the Workhouse

A short while ago, Lesley Sharman held a successful coloured pencil workshop at the Ripon Workhouse Museum. This was her first try at teaching and it obviously worked as she has been asked to do it again and full details of future events can be seen on the website.

Here's Lesley's report of the event in October.

Eight people attended (the maximum number that I’d decided on), who came from far and wide. One lady travelled over 70 miles to attend after spotting the event on the Workshops page of the UKCPS website, another came from 60 miles away, and two were from about 20 miles away. They were all keen to try out something different from the usual watercolour painting classes and some specifically wanted instruction in using coloured pencils.

As everybody was new to CP I started with the basics, explaining about equipment and techniques and let them experiment with different types of pencils and papers. The afternoon was taken up with following step-by-step instructions for three different-coloured bell peppers which I had prepared.

Derwent very kindly sponsored the event, and I also explained about the Society and handed out flyers, so hopefully we may soon have some new members from up North.

To my relief, the day was a great success and everybody went home happy and proud of what they managed to achieve.

I had very positive feedback and I recently repeated the workshop. The lady from 60 miles away returned with five other people from her local art group, and they have asked for more. I now have a waiting list of people wanting to learn about coloured pencil, so I think this might well be the start of my running regular workshops in Yorkshire, building on the first one to cover different subjects and techniques. Watch this space!

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.

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

The Last Supper 2010 in Coloured Pencils

UKCPS member Robin Borrett has sent UKCPS News an example of what has been produced by East Leake Coloured Pencil Artists - his group of coloured pencil students.

The Last Supper 2010 was on show on to the public on 19th Jun at the East Leake Carnival along with an exhibition of other coloured pencil work in order to raise funds for the local Air Ambulance and Help for Heroes.

About 14 artists took part in creating the picture which measures 6 feet in length.  Right click the image at the top of this post to see a larger version. 

On the right is a picture of the image on display in the exhibition.

Do you have a story about how you promote coloured pencil art in your local area?

If you are a UKCPS members and have news about what you have been doing to promote coloured pencils in your area please write and tell the UKCPS Blogmaster about it.

Don't forget we'll also need photos of the activity or jpegs of the artwork.