Presidents Message

Welcome to our blog! The blog will be in newsletter style and will replace our regular quarterly newsletter. This will be a great tool to keep us connected. All members are encouraged to send articles to Gemma for posting online anytime. There will be no deadlines so you will not get a once a month post, it will happen as things come in. You could get a couple of things one month and the next post might be a month or two out. You will receive updates as they happen the news will be more current than trying to save articles for a newsletter.

The blog is for everyone. The updates will be sent out to those who do not have an email address. There are only 2 or 3 at this point, almost everyone has moved into the electronic age. We, as a group have been slow to do this as well because we worried about those who were not doing computers. But it is the way almost everyone is communicating these days and we have to move forward with the times. It also saves the club a ton of money on postage.

Keep in mind that Gemma does not write the articles, she just posts them online. She will need articles to post and that means that we all can contribute. A book review or a new tip or trick you learned, any type of art class or workshop coming up in northern California (not advertising but information) would be great or a new product that you have discovered. Any kind of show you are in or even entering, any type of award you have received, we want to congratulate our members for their work. Some artists get published in different books, newspapers etc. That would of interest.

Do a work-in-progress

If you are working on a new pencil piece send a photo of the beginnings and what words you want. When you do this you could attach a little info about what tools you are using etc. These are so much fun to watch. Although the blog is not interactive, you can certainly put a note that you would welcome comments from members at your email address.

Wahoo!!! Convention Is Coming Here In July.

The next five months should prove to be very exciting and interesting with the National Convention coming to our area July 28th through the 31st. As you remember our chapter is the host chapter and we are assuming certain responsibilities to help with this fabulous event. If you are interested in helping, let us know. We will need a little help for a few activities.

Why go the convention?

If you have never gone you deserve to see all the new ideas and products that will be on display and given away. You will meet the artists that do all the great work. All the latest and greatest ideas and people will be there. The last time that a convention was in our area was in 2001, so you see it is not an opportunity that is in our backyard very often. The location changes yearly east coast, west coast mostly.

Workshops

You have an opportunity to have two different workshops from well-known colored pencil “movers and shakers” who are in our field. They will help to show us how to progress as a colored pencil artist. I have attended many of these and have never been disappointed with what I learned.

The Member Meeting

• Free admission, open to everyone.
• Tons of prizes art related are given away to people attending. The vendors are very generous to us.
• The entire group of entries for the exhibit will be shown. This is the ONLY time you can see this. I found this to be one of the most interesting parts of the event. I just love seeing what people are doing and entering.
• You get a real look at why judging a show is so difficult.

The Awards Dinner

• Sit with your friends and see the awards given away. Get excited!! There will be thousands of dollars awarded to cp artists just like you.
• The dinner is always special and its lots of fun getting to know other cp artists.
• This is a paid event.

Gallery Reception

• See the paintings and meet the artists.
• This is open to the public.
• Invite your friends to come and see the show.