6th Annual "World of Coloured Pencil" Exhibition

Karen Coulson, UKCPS, "Friend or Foe"

Winner of the Derwent Award for Best in Show

Just a heads up that the online version of the 6th "World of Coloured pencil" Exhibition is now available here. The real thing can be seen at the Cumberland Pencil Museum, Keswick for the whole of the month of June, so please if you are in the area, drop in and enjoy. Many thanks to Dave Richards and all of the other members who helped set this up on what I believe was a wet Sunday in Keswick!

Congratulations to Karen Coulson, winner for the second time of the Best in Show at this Exhibition. This time her prize, kindly donated by Derwent, consists of:

1) Deluxe set of Inktense in wooden presentation box which includes 24 Inktense pencils, 3 ink sticks, 3 natural hair Chinese brushes, a slate ink stone, a traditional blue and white ceramic brush rest and a project sheet.

2)A wooden box containing 72 Coloursoft pencils

3) A book on Chinese brush painting

4) An A4 hardback sketch book

5) A silk collection journal

6) A pencil wrap

7) A limited edition pencil set in a leather box

8) A burnisher and blender set

9) A 2 hole pencil sharpener

10) A water brush

Well worth winning or what?

And congratulations to our friends at Derwent, as their new premises at Lillyhall Business Park, Workington, will be opened by HM the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on June 5th - read more about the visit here. But this also leads to our commiserations to the large Sales team who will unfortunately not be present as they have to man the Derwent stand at the Patchings Festival which starts that day.

I have not been invited to meet the Queen either, so see you at Patchings!

Patchings Festival, 5th-8th June

A snapshot of my stand last year at the Patchings Farm Arts Festival, which this year will be held on June 5th - 8th. The UKCPS will be strongly represented there this year, with Robin Borrett having his own stand again, and Peter Weatherill demonstrating for Caran d'Ache, so please come along and see us and take time for a chat.



As I write this, it is raining. This is NOT Patchings weather! usually it is so hot the pencils melt! I hope it sorts itself out in time for Thursday.

Keswick Exhibition and other bits.

Just a reminder that this year's "World of Coloured Pencil" Exhibition opens on June 1st at the Cumberland Pencil Museum, Keswick, thanks to our friends at Derwent. In case you are worrying, while Derwent have moved their production facilities to new premises, the Museum still stays at the old site at Keswick, and the Exhibition is on there for the whole of the month of June. Pat and John Heffer, Dave Richards, Eric Armstrong and the ever-present Suzy Herbert will be setting the Exhibition up on Sunday 1st June, and I am sure they will be delighted to see any members who wish to drop in and help or just say "Hi". Having seen the scans of the 23 entries, I can say how impressed I am with the overall standard this year and I am sure all visitors to the Museum will be delighted with the show.

Other news - thanks to Roger Harris for pointing us to a new supplier of Prismacolor pencils in the UK - Refuelled.com, who are selling sets of 132 Prismacolour for £105, excellent value.

And with apologies for being a day or so late telling you, Ann Kullberg has a sale on at present with up to 40% off many items - but it ends May 26th, so get in there quick!

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!

May at Keswick

Tony Hogan, "Catbells"

Our friends at the Cumberland Pencil Museum in Keswick have asked me to let you know that they have a series of events planned for the month of May. The demonstrations are suitable for beginners and intermediate levels, and are being offered Free as part of the Open learning Package at the Museum.

To kick off the month Robin Evans will be demonstrating with Graphite, Tinted Charcoal, and Ink. Robin is a highly talented illustrator and sketch artist, also known as “Evsie”, and has been living in Kendal since 2003. Robin has already established a client base and reputation in Kendal as: The Cartoonist. Robin is also a favourite at local outdoor shows, where he says his ambition is to “keep drawing and amusing people until I am 92, and then I might retire”. Robin will be at the Museum on Thursday 8th and Friday 9th May and the demonstrations run from 10am – 4pm.

On Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th May Coloured Pencil Artist Jenny Hill, will be teaching techniques specialising in Wildlife and Botanical drawing. Jenny concentrates on commission art, and will be teaching how to create animal features and tone and depth of a subject.

To finish the series, Professional Artist Tony Hogan, will be running a three day demonstration in the use of Pastel Pencils and Tinted Charcoal. Tony Hogan is a long established artist and is recognised for his “stunning paintings” of the Lake District, and his relaxed and easy way of teaching. His demonstrations are ideally suited for the beginner, who would like to learn the art of Pastel Pencil techniques. The demonstrations run from Tuesday 27th – Thursday 29th May.
Tony Hogan will also have a series of original framed paintings for sale in the Museum Gallery.

Please contact The Cumberland Pencil Museum, by e-mail from their site, or call 017687 73626 for further details.

Books and a Course

A couple of books in the "Bible" series by Search Press are being released and may be of interest to our members. The first of these to come out is the "Landscape Artists Drawing Bible", by Hazel Harrison, which features work by our members Graham Brace, Peter Woof and Robin Borrett, and in May the "Coloured Pencil Artists Drawing Bible" by Jane Strother, will be released. Robin also has work in this, but I have yet to hear of other members who do - I am sure there will be some, as the publishers used the UKCPS site to contact several of our members. The value of our Members Gallery pages asserts itself again - a gentle reminder to those who have not yet availed yourselves of this opportunity!

The other thing I wanted to mention in this blog is that Jonathan Newey has some spaces left in a 'Drawing landscapes with coloured pencil' course at the Preston Montford Field Centre near Shrewsbury on the weekend of 16-18 May. Please contact Preston Montford Field Centre, Montford Bridge, Shrewsbury, SY4 1DX Tel:01743 852040 if you are interested.