Threadneedle Figurative Prize

Just a heads up that there is a new competition out there that accepts coloured pencil works and has a prize fund of £35,000! Held in the Mall Galleries, London, the Threadneedle Figurative Prize competition is open to all artists over 18, and work must have been completed since Jan 2007. What appealed to me about this competition was the fact that it specifies that work should be representational and retain "a strong reference to the real world", and also that the major prize will be voted on by the public - this is not the Turner Prize! The full rules are here, and the most important thing is probably the deadline - Friday 20th June.

Best of Luck!

CP work in the news

"Primulas" Bob Ebdon 17cm x 21cm

First published "Leisure Painter" March 2008

Just a heads up that some coloured pencil work can be seen in a couple of places at the moment.

First, there is an article in the current (March) edition of "Leisure Painter" magazine that shows some ways of getting dark tones using coloured pencils. The article shows a step-by-step of a primula, using a colourway approach, grisaille, and complementary colours to get darks. Sorry to blow my own trumpet, but yes, the author of the article is me.

Then the makers and distributors of Stonehenge paper, Legion Papers, have just added a gallery to their site which shows several artists who use Stonehenge paper as their preferred support. There are a couple of UKCPS members showing work in this gallery - Arlene Steinberg and, yes, sorry, its me again!

To avoid ALL posts being about me, please get in touch with anything that you would like me to include in future blogs - any exhibitions, awards, galleries visited where CP work is on show - anything of interest to the membership in general, please tell me about it.

New Derwent Catalogue

The new Derwent catalogue is now available, from The Cumberland Pencil Company, Southey Works, Keswick, Cumbria, CA12 5NG, or by download from the Derwent site. Normally, this would not cause me to put pen to blog - most companies release a catalogue every year or two. What is different about this one is the trouble Derwent have gone to to include artists work using their pencils, and especially artists from the UKCPS. This lavish catalogue incudes work by myself, Katherine Tyrrell, Graham Brace, David Cook, Carole Gray, and Tiffany Budd, all current members of the Society - and Stephen Ormerod, who I am sure has just forgotten to renew! It is well worth getting this catalogue just to see the gorgeous artwork inside!

Janie Gildow

The UKCPS is delighted to announce that we have managed to get Janie Gildow, CPSA, to be part of our Jury for the 7th Annual Open Exhibition, sponsored by Faber Castell, in October 2008. Full details of the exhibition submission procedures will be available with the March edition of Talking Point, but for now we can reveal that Janie will be one of the panel of three jurors who will decide on which pictures get accepted into the exhibition.

Janie will be well known to most of us through her books - "Coloured Pencil Solutions" (with Barbara Benedetti Newton) and "Coloured Pencil Explorations". On her website she gives some clues as to what she might be looking for in a picture when she says:

"Good art is a result of careful planning, creative expression, strong composition, excellent craftsmanship, and a confident and complete exploration of the medium."

So - time to get the pencils out again! The deadline for submissions will be July 9th, and some other important dates can be seen on our Calendar page. Full details will be coming soon.

New Gallery with CP Bias

UKCPS Founder member Gary Theobald, UKCPS, is about to open a new Gallery in 1, Lower Downs Slade, Haverhill, Suffolk CB9 9ED (Tel: 01440 762444). The Gallery will open on Saturday 26th Jan, 2008, and is being run as a joint venture with Photographer David Doughty. It will be open on Monday Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons, and all day Saturdays. As an Award winning Silver Signature status UKCPS member, Gary naturally wants to feature coloured pencil work strongly in the Gallery, and the first show will include works by myself, Peter Woof, and Suzy Herbert as well as Gary himself, and may in future be able to offer Derwent pencils for sale. A further aim will be to feature work of East Anglian artists. Gary will also welcome visitors to view work in progress and chat about his work.

"Straw Hats", by Gary Theobald, UKCPS

There are very few Galleries in this country that are prepared to give prominence to works in coloured pencil, so I do hope that anyone in the area can get along to the Gallery and show some support, and the Society extends it's best wishes to Gary and his partner for the success of their venture.

Coloursoft USA

Sometimes we in the UK are not aware of how pencils we think of as "ours" are going down elsewhere. I came across the Coloursoft USA website recently, which has had a competition - sorry I did not know earlier! - for US users of Coloursoft. Nice to see our own Jo Goudie's horse taking front page position. It is well worth looking at the winners to see how Coloursoft are being used by other artists.

New Year, New Opportunities!

A hopefully useful little pocket money idea to spend some of Auntie's Christmas Cash, to kick off the New Year. Some years ago I did a colour conversion chart, comparing colours across a few of the major brands, which UKCPS members will vaguely recall getting a copy of in their joining packs. With the demise of Karismacolor and the arrival of Derwent Coloursoft, I thought it would be worthwhile updating this and this time including swatches of colour. I have done this and some of you may have seen trial packs at the NEC in November. After some tweaking of the printing process and decisions on pricing, the Society is now offering these for sale. I stress that ALL proceeds go to the UKCPS, nothing comes to me.

The charts are divided into approximate colour groups - the Yellow/Orange page is shown above. Where there is possible ambiguity - is Pumpkin Orange an orange or a brown? - colours are repeated on different sheets. The aim is to find replacements for Karisma, so they are in the first column, and I try to match these colours to Derwent Coloursoft, Derwent Artist, Faber Castell Polychromos, Caran d'Ache Supracolour, Lyra Polycolor and Staedtler Karat Aquarelle. With 10 million colours to choose from, it is not surprising that this is a difficult task, and often no proper match is available. Even given the limitations of colour printing though, I believe this chart does give you a good guide where to start looking. One other possible use, for example, would be to try to find a more light-fast alternative to a colour that you know is fugitive in one brand.

Peter Weatherill has kindly agreed to take on all of the mailing and printing of these charts, and the Society is offering them at £5 including postage for UK residents, £6 ($12) including postage to overseas, with a £1 ($2) discount to UKCPS members - quote membership number with order.

To order, please e-mail Peter at wpweatherill@fireflyuk.net - if you have a PayPal account you can also "Send Funds" to this e-mail address. If you need to send a cheque, Peter will give you details. This offer will also appear in the next "Talking Point", but online members have a chance to get theirs early!

For a review of this chart by member Katherine Tyrrell, please have a look at her blog: http://makingamark.blogspot.com/2007/11/coloured-pencils-colour-comparison.html

And a very Happy New Year to all UKCPS Members!