Highlights of February 2014 Meeting

Our February 22, 2014 chapter meeting was at Emil Villa’s Hickory Pit in Livermore. Members and guests attended from as far away as Valley Springs and Dixon.

As usual, our members have been busy!

• Mike Purdy: Acceptance into “Explore This! 10”
• Mike Purdy: Tombow Award for Excellence in “Explore This! 10”
• Chris Swetlin: Honorable Mention, Annual Members Exhibit, Pacific Art League
• Denise Howard: articles in TTP, April issue of CP magazine, and summer issue of UKCPS Talking Point
• Denise Howard: featured in March “Talk Art” episode
• Denise Howard, butterfly kit for Ann Kullberg
• Gemma Gylling, acceptance into two national shows—one wildlife-themed and one dog-themed

We now have a PayPal account, which enables easier membership renewal via our website instead of having to mail in a check. We’ll be able to use this for other purposes in the future, such as show entries and workshop registrations.

Our “Explorations in Colored Pencil III" will be at the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto in September!

Final plans are set for Gemma Gylling’s two-day workshop April 12-13!  The workshop will run 9 AM - 3 PM each day.  For lunch, folks can either bring their own, or they can order from a menu from nearby Mr. Pickles sandwich shop and Denise will go get the food while they keep working.  (Lunch is not included in the cost of the workshop.)  We will limit the workshop to 28 attendees due to space considerations and Gemma’s desire to be able to give individual attention.  Gemma brought a copy of the step-by-step booklet that each attendee will receive, which will enable them to confidently complete their project at home if they can't finish it during the workshop.

The next meeting will be Saturday, May 3, location TBD but will be somewhere between San Mateo and San Francisco.  Prismacolor representative Shelly Minnis will be in San Francisco that weekend and we are coordinating to have her give us a presentation!

We briefly discussed the 2014 member survey results.

We talked about the possibility of having a plein sir “drawing day” at an area garden.  Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore not only welcomes artists but hosts art events and has enormous spreading oak trees for shade.  We will check into setting a “drawing day” there in late May, before it gets too hot.

We also talked about a possible museum outing. 

Door prizes were won by being the first to correctly answer impromptu questions!  Two of them were “Name a brand of colored pencil that does not start with the letter ‘P’”, and “How many members does our chapter currently have?”  Nobody was able to answer “What year was our chapter founded?”  (1995) or “Who was the founder of our chapter?”  (Shirley Dominiak)

Denise Howard presented “Colored Pencil on Dura-Lar Drafting Film” complete with a handout.  She showed how she sets up to draw on it with a tape “hinge” along one edge to enable flipping it over to draw on the back.  She demonstrated how drawing on the back can intensify or modify the color on the front, and how no outline is necessary on the film.  Her finished piece “A Private Conversation”, of a hen and rooster, will be featured in the summer issue of the UKCPS’s “Talking Point” magazine along with a full article she wrote on the topic.  She sent everyone home with a small sample of Dura-Lar and a challenge: try it, and bring your result to the May meeting!

We had great participation for “show and tell”!  Some finished pieces, some works in progress.  We all got constructive advice or learned something. 

Gemma brought her copy of “Strokes of Genius 5” which includes one of her drawings, and Denise brought her copy of “CP Treasures, Volume II” which includes drawings by both her and Gemma, for everyone to look through.

Several items in the swap meet were quickly claimed.  The remainder will be donated to an elementary school.  We decluttered our shelves, benefited each other, and benefited a school to boot!

See you all at our next meeting on May 3!

Mike Purdy a Winner in Explore This! 10

Mike Purdy's "What's for Supper?" has won the Tombow Award for Excellence in Explore This! 10.  The award includes a $300 product voucher.  This was Mike's first acceptance into the annual Explore This! juried online exhibition, which encourages the use of other media along with colored pencil, as long as the work is predominantly colored pencil.  "What's for Supper" is colored pencil, black india ink and dry pastels.  Congratulations, Mike!

What's for Supper? by Mike Purdy

Highlights of our November 2013 meeting

Our November 2013 chapter meeting was at Emil Villa's Hickory Pit in Livermore--a great location just down the street from the Bothwell Arts Center, and we had a whole room to ourselves.  More than 20 members and guests attended--the biggest group we've had in a long time! 

There was a long list of recognition for members who have won awards or had work in shows since our  August meeting--what a busy bunch!  We recapped our very successful chapter show, which was in September at the Coastal Arts League Gallery in downtown Half Moon Bay.  We also recapped our October Livermore ArtWalk exhibit experience.  We already have a claim on a better booth location for next year!

We made concrete plans for hosting a two-day workshop in 2014.  Our workshop presenter will be Gemma Gylling, and a big thank you goes to her for volunteering her time!  Gemma is a nationally-recognized wildlife artist who travels all over the US giving these same workshops, so we are fortunate to have her on our team.  The workshop will be Saturday April 12 and Sunday April 13, 2014, at the Bothwell Arts Center in Livermore.  We are also fortunate to have Maryann Kot on our team, because her connection with the Bothwell made it easy for us to seal the deal.

Because the restaurant is so convenient for many of our newer members, we voted to have our next meeting there, too, and we settled on Saturday, February 22, 2014.

We are still looking for a venue for our chapter show for 2014.  Chris Swetlin has identified a possibility, the new San Mateo Library, but he's checking out some other venues that might provide better exposure and more wall space.  As much as we'd like to have it at the Coastal Arts League Gallery again, it is already fully booked for the year so we cannot.

Maryann Kot gave a short presentation about the Fun Tangles workshop she is developing for 2014.

After lunch, we had a great discussion about "When is a colored pencil drawing not a colored pencil drawing?"  Depending on which organization you belong to (CPSA, UKCPS, etc.) and whom you talk to, there are different restrictions on what you can and cannot call "pure colored pencil" for their international exhibitions.  For example, CPSA allows solvents to be used with pencils, while UKCPS does not.  And pastel pencils and Neocolor IIs are not considered colored pencils by either organization because the pigments used in them are pastel pigments, which are different from the pigments used in colored pencils.  Finally, the surface itself can disqualify a drawing--CPSA requires it to be commercially-prepared for the International Exhibition.  If you make your own paper or work on rocks or gourds, you can only enter those works in Explore This!, which allows and encourages using additional media and different surfaces with colored pencil.  On a more individual level, depending on whom you talk to, some purists insist that even the use of a colorless blender violates the idea of a "colored pencil drawing", as does any effort to eliminate the appearance of pencil strokes.  There is room for everyone and every style of working, but it's good to be aware of some of the opinions one might run into as a colored pencil artist!  Denise passed around pastel pencils, Neocolor IIs and watercolor pencils so everyone could see what they are and try them out.

We viewed the DVD of the entire 2013 International Exhibition and the 17 award winners.  It's fun to try to second-guess the juror and wonder what they were thinking when they chose this piece or that piece, for entry or for an award!

"Show and tell" is always the best part of a CPSA chapter meeting because it's when we all get to see what others are working on and how they're doing it, and learn from each other!  We have members at all skill levels, and no matter what level we're at, there's always plenty more to learn.

Below are some photos from the meeting, taken by Mike Purdy.  See you at our next meeting, in 2014!

During a break.  For the most part, folks were too busy sharing information to really break!

Maryann Kot talks about her newest drawing of some mushrooms during "show and tell"

Gemma Gylling describes her suede matboard technique during "show and tell"

Megan Seiter a Winner in Colored Pencil Magazine's 2013 Art Competition

Megan Seiter's "Sophie" has won 1st Place in Colored Pencil magazine's 2013 Art Competition!  This is her same piece which won 2nd Place in our chapter show "Explorations in Colored Pencil II", just last month in Half Moon Bay.  She is on a roll with her wonderful piece.

The competition was juried by well-known colored pencil artist and author Gary Greene.  To see all the winners and entries, click here.

Congratulations, Megan!

Geoff Sargeant Finalist for Mortimore Art Prize

Geoff Sargeant is by far our longest-distance chapter member; he lives in Victoria, Australia!  And yes, there is significant colored pencil action down under, thanks to terrific artists like him.  His "Moodjar Awakes After Fire" has been accepted as a Finalist for the 2013 Mortimore Art Prize, a very prestigious award.  Last year he won Best Drawing for his "Pebble Beach, Cape Cod".  Geoff explains that moodjar is the Aboriginal name for Nutsia Floribunda, the West Australian Christmas Tree.

Moodjar Awakes After Fire by Geoff Sargeant
Finalist, 2013 Mortimore Art Prize

Pebble Beach, Cape Cod by Geoff Sargent
Best Drawing, 2012 Mortimore Art Prize

You can see all the 2013 finalists here:  http://www.australianartsales.com.au/MortimorePrize/mortimoreprize.html

Geoff also currently has a show of 32 giclee prints of his pencil paintings at the Bunbury Regional Gallery in West Australia.

Congratulations, Geoff!

ArtWalk and Officers

Last Saturday, October 12, we had a booth at the Livermore ArtWalk, with eight artists exhibiting in it: Carol Ann Eicher, Henrietta Haines, Denise Howard, Maryann Kot, Debaney Lefort, Sally Marone, Maureen Taylor and J.Y. Chang.  It was a team effort, from putting up the canopy, to figuring out where to place everything, to hanging the artwork, to staffing the booth all day, to taking everything back down.  A big thank you to all!

Sales were down quite a bit from last year due to the fact that nearby Livermore Labs was shut down on account of the overall government shutdown; not knowing how long the shutdown would last, locals were doing more looking than buying.  But that's okay!  We don't do this event to make money, we do it to raise awareness about colored pencil as a medium and to give participants experience at putting on a festival exhibition and talking about their work.  I think everyone agrees it was affirming to have many visitors come in and with wide eyes say "That's colored pencil?!"

All set for the day to start! And notice our new banner, too.

Another view of our booth setup.

People were lining up to come in and see our work!

The DC210 crew

For next year the ArtWalk organizers have promised to ensure we get our favorite spot back, right next to the intersection of 1st St. and S. Livermore Ave. where foot traffic is heavier.

 In other news, we have the results of our 2013-15 officer election:

• President: Denise Howard
• Vice President: Chris Swetlin  <-- New to the board!
• Secretary: Mike Purdy
• Treasurer: J.Y. Chang

Gemma Gylling has volunteered to be our new webmaster.  Thank you, Gemma!

Our next event will be our chapter meeting on Saturday, November 16.  See our website for details as they emerge:  www.cpsa210.org/calendar.html

Mike Purdy's Demo at Coastal Arts League Gallery

On Saturday afternoon, September 14, DC210 secretary Mike Purdy took on the challenge of presenting our favorite medium at the Coastal Arts League gallery, in conjunction with our show.  He wasn't quite sure what to expect, nor was anyone else involved in the arrangements.  We were all surprised!  Here's what happened, in Mike's own words....

Saturday afternoon was really fun. It was a success and the customers were happy. It was really awkward at first. A few weeks ago I had sent the gallery e-mails that stated I would not be giving a demonstration. However when I arrived there were 5 people waiting for me to give my "demonstration". Since I didn't want to disappoint anyone I went ahead and gave them a presentation. Luckily I had plenty of pencils and paper to pass around. I spoke for almost 90 minutes about the CPSA, our chapter, pencils, paper, solvents, tools to use, etc. Everyone was very pleased. At 2:30, 5 more people came in and I spoke for another 30 minutes, then I left at 3:00. All 10 people were beginners who wanted to learn CP. They were asking about workshops, and they asked if I would conduct a full workshop in their area. I'm not ready yet, maybe one day.

Kudos to Mike for stepping up to the unexpected demand for information, and representing our favorite medium and our organization so well! This was great exposure for colored pencils, the CPSA, and for Mike.