Highlights of August 2014 Meeting

Our August 2014 meeting was in the Community Room of the Milpitas Police Administration Building in Milpitas, a spacious, comfortable and well-lit facility with plenty of seating and even a sink.

Several members had noteworthy accomplishments!

• Megan Seiter for earning CPSA signature status with this year's International Exhibition
• Marian Gault for being the event honoree of the International Calligraphers convention
• Gemma Gylling for three awards in the Animals 2014 Online Art Exhibition
• Ranjini Venkatachari for having three artworks included in a new book, "The New Colored Pencil"
• Ranjini Venkatachari for winning both First Place and People's Choice in the Sunnyvale Art Club's annual juried show
• Denise Howard for being the featured artist of the July issue of Colored Pencil magazine
• Denise Howard for having two artworks in the Pencil Art Society's first International Exhibition in Quebec
• Denise Howard for a new "In Depth" kit published by Ann Kullberg

Final plans were discussed for the chapter show, which has had a change of venue to The Peninsula Gallery in San Mateo.  The show will run Sept. 4-30 and the opening reception will be Sept. 6 5:00 - 7:00 PM in the gallery.  In conjunction with the show, the gallery is having a drawing for $200 of framing services.  Also in conjunction with the show, Ranjini Venkatachari will give a presentation "Color Pencil Possibilities" on Saturday, Sept. 20 at 1:00 in the gallery to introduce the public to our favorite medium.

A large bag full of freebies from the national convention was emptied onto a table and within 10 minutes every last item had been claimed.  There were paper samples, erasers, pencils of various types, a set of marker pens, an apron, a bottle of Gamsol, etc.  There was also a Zentangle textbook; we had a drawing for that, and Linda Huffman won it; she was the perfect recipient, as she mentioned that she has a niece who is autistic and Zentangle promises to be the ideal activity for her.

Ranjini’s hour-long demo was about techniques for working on Ampersand Pastelbord with Neocolor II water-soluble wax pastels and colored pencils together, and we barraged her with questions.  Ampersand recently named her as one of their representative artists.  At the end of her demo, we had a drawing for the small set of Neocolor IIs that she’d used for the demo, and Mike Purdy was the winner.

We all learned something from each other during “show and tell”, too!  Mike Purdy described how he uses black Speedball ink for his backgrounds to make subjects pop; Maria Lemery described how working through my new butterfly kit from Ann Kullberg emboldened her to try a blurry background on a piece she’s working on; Phil Dean showed that a colored pencil drawing doesn’t have to be color, it can be black and white; Chris Swetlin described how he was able to complete a large portrait of his daughter in only 10 hours on blue Mi Tientes paper; Andrea Myers showed the brilliantly-colored leaves she learned how to draw under Maryann’s instruction; Denise Howard described her experience creating a step-by-step “kit” for Ann Kullberg and showed the final drawing.

Our next event will be the Livermore ArtWalk on Saturday, Oct. 11, 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM in downtown Livermore!  We will have a booth in a premium spot to display our work and hopefully sell some originals, prints and cards.

Our next chapter meeting will be Saturday, November 8 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM in Livermore; the exact venue and presentation are still TBD.

Chris Swetlin, Ranjini Venkatachari, Maria Lemery, Denise Howard, Linda Huffman, Phillip Dean, Andrea Myers, Mike Purdy

Ranjini Venkatachari demonstrates her techniques for working with colored pencil and Neocolor II on Ampersand Pastelbord

Chris Swetlin - show and tell

Phil Dean - show and tell

Maria Lemery - show and tell

Andrea Myers - show and tell

Highlights of May 2014 Meeting

Our May 2014 chapter meeting was at By-Th'-Bucket in Santa Clara and University Art in San Jose.  Members and guests came from as far away as Dixon and Valley Springs. 

As usual, our members have been busy!

• Maryann Kot: Best in Show, Livermore Art Assoc. Spring Show, out of 330 entries
• Sue Marchand, 1st Place in Drawing/Pastel category, Livermore Art Assoc. Spring Show
• Carol Eicher, 3rd Place in Drawing/Pastel category, Livermore Art Assoc. Spring Show
• Joanne Spurr, two Honorable Mentions in Drawing/Pastel category, Livermore Art Assoc. Spring Show
• SEVEN members’ pieces accepted into CPSA International Exhibition!
• Janki Chokshi
• Gemma Gylling
• Denise Howard
• Mike Purdy
• Megan Seiter
• Chris Swetlin
• Ranjini Venkatachari
• Marian Gault: Pacific Scribes show at Filoli
• Denise Howard: Article in UKCPS “Talking Point”
• Denise Howard: accepted into state fair

Gemma Gylling's two-day workshop in April was a resounding success by all accounts, including the survey results, which we reviewed.  A big THANK YOU once again to Gemma for volunteering all her time and energy for this workshop to our chapter!  And thank you to volunteers Maryann, Mike, Sally, Sue and Joanne for deftly handling the Bothwell Art Center arrangements, signups, and facility setup and takedown.

For our chapter show at the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto in September, we need to find a juror.  For this year’s chapter show, “Explorations in Colored Pencil III” at the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto in September, we will do like last year and have it juried only for awards.  To that end, we still need a juror.  We will have less wall space than at last year’s show, so instead of allowing up to four entries per artist, we will limit to two or three entries. Ranjini has volunteered to do the prospectus design.

Phillip has spoken to the owners of Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore and confirmed that they’d love to host our group for a day of drawing under their massive shady oak trees; they only ask for a couple of weeks of advance notice, to avoid having too many groups show up at once.  Phillip is now going to ask them for a couple of open dates and then we’ll pick one and do it.  This will be a great opportunity to try plein air drawing!  Yes, it gets quite hot in Livermore in summer, but the ancient oak trees provide great shade and we’ll make sure everyone stays hydrated.

Group orders:  if anyone is ever interested in putting together a large enough order of a particular art supply to get a volume discount, let me know!  We can do that via online retailers like Dick Blick or Jerry’s Artarama.  Quite often there’s a significant discount at, say, 25 sheets of paper; nobody wants to order that much individually, but everybody uses it, so if we go together on an order we can make it happen.

After “show and tell” we settled up the lunch bill and drove over to University Art in time for the Prismacolor presentation at 2:00.  The 45 minutes flew by; Prismacolor representative Shelley Minnis covered not only the colored pencils but their blender pencils, art markers and pens and marker blenders and how to use them.  She had examples of beautiful drawings that have been created by some well-known colored pencil artists using various surfaces.  She mentioned that the blender pencils were recalled and taken off the market for a few months while they diagnosed a manufacturing problem that had caused them to change due to one ingredient, and were just recently reintroduced.  So they do pay attention and respond to customer feedback.   Then it was time for Prismacolor door prizes, and out of about 25 people in the room I think five of the prizes went to DC210 members!  There were sharpeners, small sets of markers, and best of all, a full set of 132 Prismacolor pencils in a tin!  If you weren’t there, see what you missed??? 

Our next meeting will be Saturday, August 23, 11 AM - 3 PM in the Community Room of the Milpitas Police Administration building, 1275 North Milpitas Blvd, Milpitas.  Ranjini Venkatachari will present her techniques for working on sanded board and mounting and varnishing work so that it requires no glass covering.  Thanks to Maria for arranging the venue!