The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists - and coloured pencils

This year the UKCPS Open International Exhibition will be held in Gallery 2 of the RBSA Gallery in Birmingham which is the home of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA). This post tells you a little bit about the RBSA, its history and current activities - plus Rachel Stirling's latest success in promoting coloured pencil art.

The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists is one of the oldest art societies in the UK.

In 1821, the Birmingham Society of Artists was formed, whose objective was to establish a museum for works of art, provide facilities for students, hold public exhibitions and extend art education in the city of Birmingham.
RBSA - About the RBSA

The RBSA played an important part in the Pre-Raphaelite movement and Sir John Everett Millais and Sir Edward Burne-Jones both served as presidents of the RBSA. Other well known presidents were Lord Leighton and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Today there are nearly 200 Members and Associates, elected in categories of painter, sculptor, potter, printmaker, textiles, and jewellery. Members and Associates are elected once a year.

The Society also has a Gallery near the Jewellery Quarter area of Birmingham which is around 15 minutes walking distance of the main stations.

The RBSA invites non-members to enter the three Open and one Prize exhibitions which are held each year in the Gallery. The RBSA also contributes to continuing education and community art through its Friends organisation - Friends of the RBSA - which also has twice-yearly RBSA Friends exhibitions.

Promoting coloured pencil artwork at RBSA

One of the main aims of the UKCPS is to promote coloured pencils as an art medium.

Floral Design by Rachel Stirling

One of the main ways in which members can help with promoting coloured pencils is by entering their artwork in the juried exhibitions of other art societies. The more other artists see and appreciate how coloured pencil can be used as a medium for fine art, the more likely it is that they will give coloured pencils a try!

Rachel Stirling who helped to organise and run the Art Materials Live event last November, had two coloured pencil drawings juried into the RBSA Friends Spring Exhibition which ran 18 - 28 February 2009.

Upcoming RBSA art competitions include the two shows below.

• RBSA Open all media exhibition : 1 - 18 April 2009
• RBSA Prize exhibition : 28 May - 27 June 2009 (this has a grand prize of £1000)

Submission forms and further details are available from the website
Please click on the following THREE links to download the required forms: Schedule, Terms and Conditions, Labels. Alternatively, send in an SAE to request a schedule and we will return one in the post to you. The forms will need to be returned to the gallery by Wednesday 25 March.
RBSA - Home Page

Here's wishing the best of luck to any members who consider entering.

Links:

• the UKCPS Open International Exhibition
• Royal Birmingham Society of Artists
• RBSA - Art Competitions
  
• RBSA Gallery - Locate us
  

Janie Pirie becomes a member of the Society of Botanical Artists

UKCPS member Janie Pirie recently contacted us with some excellent news.

"Yesterday I heard that I have been accepted as a full member of the Society of Botanical Artists. Last June I was awarded a Silver-Gilt medal by the RHS for my work. Most botanical artists use watercolour so it is quite unusual to have someone work in pencils. Ann Swan was the encouragement – we are now good friends."

Sweetcorn by Janie Pirie
coloured pencil
copyright the artist

The above image is one of the five drawings that will be on display for the first time at the Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Open Exhibition in April at Central Hall, Westminster in London. It's also one of the five drawings that earned Janie her full membership of the SBA. Janie also says: "...needless to say, they look much better ‘in the flesh’!"

You can see more of Janie's botanical art in coloured pencils on her website.

Janie runs a variety of workshops at her garden studio every Wednesday & Thursday as well as visiting art groups. She also runs workshops at The Beth Chatto Gardens and next month will be holding a 3-day course at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens.

The Society of Botanical Artists Annual Exhibition

The exhibition runs from 4 April to Sunday 3 May 2009 and is open daily from 10am to 5pm including Sundays. Admission is free and all work is for sale.

Details of how to become an Associate Member and how to exhibit with the Society of Botanical Artists is available on the SBA website. It's worth noting that last year's exhibition had more work in coloured pencil than I've seen in previous years.

I've also had two coloured pencil drawings accepted into the same exhibition! I guess there are probably other UKCPS members who have also had work accepted. If so can you please let me know by leaving a comment below or emailing me (see the side column) and I'll look out for your work when I visit the exhibition.

8th UKCPS Open International Exhibition - Call for Entries

The exhibition page on the UKCPS website

Anyone, anywhere in the world, who likes to produce art using coloured pencils is invited to enter the 8th Open International Exhibition 2009 of the United Kingdom Coloured Pencil Society (UKCPS) sponsored by Derwent.

This annual exhibition will be held in 2009 in Gallery 2 at the home of the The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in Birmingham from Monday 21st September to Saturday 3rd October.

ENTRY: What you need to know

Here are some of the important things you need to know:

• Who can enter? This is an open competition - which means you don't need to be a paid-up member of UKCPS to enter....
  
• ....however it you would like to try and earn signature status from UKCPS you'll need to become a member before you enter! Check out the details of how to do this on the membership page on the UKCPS website. If you are successful in getting into this show three times within a five year span you can become a signature member and are entitled to put the letters UKCPS after your name.
• if your work is accepted into the exhibition, you become eligible to win one or more of the valuable Awards: Derwent Award for Best in Show (£400), UKCPS Award for Reserve Best in Show (£300), the President's Award (£100), the Peter Weatherill Landscape Award (£100), the People's Choice Award (£50), among other awards.
• the entry form for this exhibition has been despatched to all members in the March edition of the Talking Point newsletter. You can also now download the combined Call For Entries and Entry Form (pdf file) from the NEW exhibition page on the UKCPS website.
  
• IMPORTANT: The criteria for eligible work has changed in 2009. As usual we suggest you should read ALL of the details given in the Call for Entries/Entry Form very carefully. However, this year, you are recommended to pay particular attention to the definition of eligible work which has changed from that used in previous years. Using your mouse, you can right click on the image below to see the relevant part of the form - which states very clearly what sort of work is eligible to enter and what would make a work ineligible for the competition. Work which is submitted but ineligible will be refused entry.

Eligible Works: An extract from the Call For Entries

• to enter you need to submit a completed entry form plus image(s) (as a photo, print or high resolution scan on CD) by the deadline of 24th June to Pat Heffer, the UKCPS Exhibition Secretary
  
• Entry fees: These have also changed. As previously explained in Talking Point, every UKCPS member now gets one entry free and can submit up to 3 additional entries @ £5 per entry. The entry fee for all non-members is £17.50 each for up to 2 entries and as membership is £28 per annum for a UK member (and £33 for a non-UK member) you can see there's a slight financial incentive to joining UKCPS!
• Jury: A jury considers all images, plus the title and details of size. Artists' names, descriptions and CVs are not provided to jurors. The jurors this year are Vera Curnow CPSA (Founder of the Colored Pencil Society of America, author, editor and gallery owner), Paul Hipkiss RBSA of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists and a representative of Derwent.
  
• Notification: Those accepted into the exhibition will be notified by 21st August 2009.

If you have any queries you should contact Pat Heffer, the Exhibitions Secretary. Pat's contact details are available on the website (Click the 'email' next to the Exhibition Secretary title to get the email address).

Alternatively leave a query by using a comment on this post (see below) and we'll make sure all queries submitted this way get an answer.

If you'd like to see the sort of work which got into last year's exhibition and the work which won prizes take a look at the links to past blog posts about the 2008 exhibition at the end of this post.

UKCPS would like acknowledge and thank Derwent the principal sponsor of UKCPS exhibitions in 2009, together with our other sponsors of the 8th Open International Exhibition 2009 - Faber Castell, Caran d'Ache and Great Art.

DATES: Finally a reminder of the key dates

• Closing date for entry: Wednesday June 24th 2009
  
• Handing in day: Sunday 20th September 2009
• Exhibition dates: Monday 21st September to Saturday 3rd October 2009

Links:

• 8th UKCPS Annual International Open Exhibition 2009 - key dates
• 7th Annual Open International Exhibition 2008 and AGM
• UKCPS Annual Exhibition 2008 - Award Winners
• UKCPS Annual Exhibition 2008 - Highly Commended
• UKCPS - new signature members
• Works selected for UKCPS Annual Exhibition 2008

Entry Form for 7th 'World of Coloured Pencil' Exhibition 2009

The formal Call For Entries and Entry Form for the 7th World of Coloured Pencil Exhibition 2009 was despatched to UKCPS members last week. Members can also now download the document from the page dedicated to this exhibition on the UKCPS website.

The earliest sending in date is 30th March 2009 and the closing date for all entries is 16th April 2009.

Only UKCPS members can enter (entry is free) and each member may only submit one picture. Work must be original (concept, design and execution by the artist) and should demonstrate compositional and drawing skills as well as an ability to use coloured pencils. Work can be in mixed media so long as coloured pencil is the main medium.

The form plus image - in the form of a photo, print or digital file on a CD - should be submitted to Dave Richards (address and contact details are on the Entry Form). All entrants will be contacted and advised whether they have been successful by 30th April.

This exhibition is sponsored by Derwent and Leisure Painter.

Feedback on Talking Point

I asked Ann Holden, the Editor of Talking Point to let me know about the feedback she's had about the 'new look' for Talking Point following its despatch to all the members of UKCPS last week.

You can find what had to say below. If you'd like to let her have any feedback you can

• either leave a comment below
  
• or you can contact Ann by email by clicking here and finding her email address in the contacts part of the UKCPS website.

____________________________________

An image from Step 5 in "Journey's End" - a masterclass on working with Mylar
by Richard "Chumley" Childs UKCPS
an article in Talking Point (March 2009)

By now, almost every member should have received their copy of Talking Point. On this occasion I knew exactly when the copies had been mailed and it has been an eye-opener to find out how variable the delivery times have been – and this was only in the UK.

However, I have been much relieved by the response to the ‘new look’. The comments that have reached me have been unanimous in their approval of the overall appearance – ‘a proper magazine’, ‘professional publication’, and so on. The e-mail I particularly valued was one from the Society’s Founder, Bob Ebdon, saying (amongst other things) ‘Wow!!’

But, of course, the magazine would have been nothing without the people who contributed articles and news and I am very grateful to all of them.

In future issues, members have said they would like to see more pictures – and so would I! So please send me copies of pictures you’ve completed and are happy to be included.

If possible, add a few words about the picture (eg size, paper/support, media used, why you chose the subject, whether you’re happy with it, and so on). I’d also like to have pictures from newcomers to CP, not just from those who can draw water with their eyes closed!

I look forward to hearing from you

Ann Holden, Editor

Talking Point - March 2009

The March 2009 edition of the UKCPS newsletter Talking Point has been published and despatched to all members of the United Kingdom Coloured Pencil Society (UKCPS).

Members need to watch out for the delivery of this one because it is special for three reasons:

• it contains the entry form for The 7th UKCPS 'World of Coloured Pencil' Exhibition 2009
• it contains the entry form for The 8th UKCPS Open International Exhibition 2009
• the newsletter has a new look and format!
  

The newsletter should now have been received by virtually all members living in the UK - mine arrived yesterday. Members living overseas should all be receiving it shortly.

I'll be posting more details about the exhibitions next Friday, 27th February. Details of entry to the open exhibition will also be published on the website on the same day.

If you're interested in becoming a member of the United Kingdom Coloured Pencil Society you can find out more about how to join on the UKCPS website.

The TP Newsletter Editor, Ann Holden would be interested to hear from UKCPS members if you have any comments on the new look and format of Talking Point. You can find out how to contact her on the back page on Talking Point or here.

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.