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May 1st, 2012 By Guest Author / Contributor written by Alexandra Bastien, CPSC Vice President
Here I will discuss a topic that worries many artists who are beginning their careers. When you have your work represented by a gallery, it’s often the gallery which manages the prices for your work. So I will elaborate on this aspect a little further on in this article. But if you are not represented by an art gallery, here are some tips that may help you to find the price range that will be fair to you and to all your potential customers.
First, we must take into account a general rule; in the art world, prices are determined mainly by size and medium. For two-dimensional works, oil has the highest price range, followed by acrylic, and then by works on paper (watercolor, pastels, charcoal, coloured pencils, graphite). A painting is usually sold for more than a sketch on paper. This is not always the case, but framed works under glass are more difficult to sell in commercial galleries. Buyers who visit art galleries are often visiting tourists and prefer to purchase a work (e.g. a painting) which they can roll up in their luggage. Frames with glass, middle-to-large-sizes are more difficult . . . → Read More: How To Set A Fair Price For Your Work?
February 1st, 2012 By Guest Author / Contributor written by Erica Walker, CPSC Secretary-Treasurer
The Three Graces by Ester Roi
The first time I saw some of Ester Roi’s work one word came immediately to mind: “blazing.” Such colour! I’m never surprised by the idea that coloured pencils can do extraordinary things but in this case I was particularly impressed and curious to learn more of her technique. When I found out about her Icarus Drawing Board I thought I would love to try it some day. Then the day arrived in January, with a late and unexpected Christmas present. Hooray!
For those of you who may not have heard of it, the Icarus Board is a portable drawing board with a “warm zone” that can be heated electrically. The heated surface causes any wax-based media to soften or even melt; when returned to room temperature, the medium solidifies once more. It is suitable for artist crayons, oil pastels and, of course, coloured pencils. Roi has developed many techniques for her invention and her own radiant work shows what may be accomplished with it. My own experiences are extremely limited since I’ve hardly used it yet, but here’s what I have to tell you so far.
First, . . . → Read More: First Impressions Of The Icarus Drawing Board
January 9th, 2012 By Guest Author / Contributor written by Manon Leclerc, CPSC Member photos © Manon LeClerc
This article was originally published in the webzine “Crayons de couleur, le Mag” in November 2011. The webzine is available at: http://crayonsdecouleurlemag.jimdo.com/
Resistance to light is a major issue for all artistic media, including coloured pencils. Artists must take into consideration the quality of products used to ensure the long-lastingness of their works. Coloured pencil is no exception. Many coloured pencil artists assume that all artist-quality pencils have excellent resistance to light. Unfortunately, the reality is different …
Artist-grade pencils are made with pigments and binders of better quality than those in student- or middle-grade pencils, so artist-grade pencils are more likely to resist fading. However, the term “artist quality” on a box of pencils does not guarantee the product’s lightfastness. Some pigments are more susceptible to fading over time. Also, should you happen to have any old pencils, it is quite possible that they possess less resistance to light, since before 2003, there weren’t any standards in this area. Today, manufacturers are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of offering products with improved stability to light.
Why is this important?
The durability of a work in coloured pencil is . . . → Read More: Coloured Pencil Lightfastness
November 5th, 2011 By Guest Author / Contributor NOVEMBER COLOUR CHALLENGE
Get ready for another Monthly CPSC Colour Challenge! Several of you rose to the occasion for October and produced some very impressive blacks, without so much as touching your black pencils. Bravo! Now, are you ready for November, that month of neutrals?
November is perhaps the best month in the year for neutrals. Gray comes out in full force, when brighter, bolder colours have at last left the stage. At first it may seem dull. But gray isn’t really dull at all – it’s just shy. It tends to whisper where more confident colours shout. There’s a whole world of beautiful, elusive shades of gray out there, and no amount of pre-mixed gray can ever hope to capture them. That’s why we’ve decided to confiscate all your pre-mixed neutrals.
Yes, that’s our Colour Challenge for November! Complementary colours can create glowing, one-of-a-kind neutrals, as rich and beautiful as any other colour. So can you render something gray, WITHOUT using a gray pencil? It can be anything from a pebble to a tree branch to a scarf. Get your complements out and let’s see what you can do!
. . . → Read More: CPSC November Colour Challenge
October 8th, 2011 By Lissa Rachelle Robillard, CPSC Membership Director & Director of Web Services OCTOBER COLOUR CHALLENGE
Get ready for the CPSC Monthly Colours Challenge! To help prepare and set the mood for CPSC’s upcoming exhibition next July, every month between now and then we’ll be featuring a new colour-oriented challenge to stretch our skills and get us solving new problems.
With so many pre-mixed colours available on the market today, it’s easy for cp artists to rely on them. We can just reach into the box and choose exactly the colour we need. The trouble is, no one pencil is EVER exactly what we need. The colours that we mix ourselves will not only be more accurate, they will also be just a little bit different from any other in the entire world! When we mix our own colours we know that no other artist will ever get exactly the same results – not even if they have used the same pencils! That’s what’s so exciting about colour mixing, and why we want to see how you’ll rise to our Colour Challenges.
A new Colour Challenge will be posted here on our webste, as well as on our Facebook site, the first Saturday of every month. And remember, there is absolutely NO . . . → Read More: CPSC Monthly Colour Challenges
September 1st, 2011 By Lissa Rachelle Robillard, CPSC Membership Director & Director of Web Services Reflected Sunrise by Gordon Webster
After a very long, patient wait and much anticipation by our Francophone members, the Coloured Pencil Society of Canada is pleased and proud to announce the launch of the French adaptation of our website. Much gratitude goes to our Vice President, Alexandra Bastien, who did (and will continue to do) the majority of the very time-consuming French translation. We would like to encourage all CPSC members to email their own French translation of their Artist Bio/Statement, so that we may add it to the French edition of their Showcase Gallery page. In future we will be striving to publish the French translation of all articles on our website simultaneously with the English version, or at least within a very short time frame of the English publication.
We are also privileged to spotlight Ottawa based coloured pencil artist, Gordon Webster as our Featured Artist for the month of September. Gordon is both the Founder and the President of the CPSC and it is a true honour to be able to take a small glimpse into his process as described through his interview. Thank you for taking the time to share your artistic venture with us, . . . → Read More: CPSC Goes Bilingual!
December 1st, 2010 By Lissa Rachelle Robillard, CPSC Membership Director & Director of Web Services Happy Holidays from CPSC
It’s a wonderful, exciting time of year, not only because the holidays are just around the corner but because, here at CPSC, we have been super busy developing our new Coloured Pencil Society of Canada website and getting it ready for its official launch date – which is today!
As part of our effort to further our mandate to promote the use and recognition of Coloured Pencil as a fine art medium, we plan to work diligently at presenting our members not only with significant exhibitions and events in future, but also to provide, through our website, many interesting and educational articles and points of view, as well as many opportunities to participate with fellow CPSC members on a regular basis in fun activities that we hope will help to promote a real feeling of camaraderie and support amongst our members.
To that end we invite you to explore and become familiar with all areas of our website, and hope you will especially enjoy:
“meeting” CPSC President, Gordon Webster, and finding out why he founded the Coloured Pencil Society of Canada. discovering the diverse beauty of coloured pencil by exploring our Member Showcase (see links . . . → Read More: Wishing All A Happy, Safe and Colourful Holiday Season!
October 1st, 2010 By Guest Author / Contributor written by Erica Walker, CPSC Secretary-Treasurer
Line & Colour – coloured pencil has it all!
This question was developed into one of the most famous quarrels in art by two of its greatest artists, J.-A.-D. Ingres (1780-1867) and Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863).
Ingres, stupendous draftsman, severe advocate of classicism, Raphael, and dignity, maintained that line and line alone was the answer. Delacroix, legendary colourist, founder of Romanticism and admirer of Rubens, insisted that the secret to great art was great colour. Each stuck to his own position and detested the other’s work, opinions, favourite artists and probably everything else. If only they had known about coloured pencil! Capable of exquisite line, in equally exquisite colour – what more could either have asked for?
Blunt or sharp, soft or bold, delicate or powerful: coloured pencils offer tremendous control of line and shade. All the subtlety of value that Ingres so loved is here, literally, at your fingertips – just vary the pressure and you can get anything from the faintest hint of a shadow to the deepest, richest darks. While coloured pencils are not always easy to erase, there are many ways to change your mind and make corrections.
And then, . . . → Read More: Which is more important, line or colour?
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