www.penciltopics.co.uk

NEWS

This page started in August 2009 and was

aimed at highlighting Coloured Pencil Topics that have come up elsewhere

and might not have had universal coverage.

It also aimed to provide links to the original sources.

I will also bring in items concerning my own courses and note the situation with bookings etc

This News page does not replace the ‘Updates’ page which continues

and which deals only with recording changes to this web site

www.penciltopics.co.uk    Web Site Growth   

The site was established with no publicity on January 25th 2009

In February 2010 the site had  216 visitors in one single day - a site record to date, and the site monthly average for visitors is now over 100 a day.  Feedback is good and more ideas are being considered for content.

In May 2010 we are approaching the viewing statistic figures for the whole of last year ( 2009 )

Thank you for your interest !

NEW NEWS

LOOK OUT FOR THE DERWENT PENCIL TOOLS SET

Derwent recently sent me a set of their pencil tools to evaluate.  They retail at around £10 and between them cover a lot of useful accessories in the shape of brushes, indenting tools of different sizes and also shapers.

Worth looking at and adding to your kit of bits and pieces if you have not already covered those tools with other purchases.  Details of the pack are on the Derwent site

Derwent have also recently added a pair of pencil extenders to their accessories sets.  There is one each of two different diameters in the pack, so most pencils can be accommodated.  Very useful for getting that bit of extra mileage out of the stub end of a favourite colour

FOR ADDICTS OF PENCILS

Japanese Manufacturer releases information on

Felissimo Coloured Pencils

If you are the sort of person who collects things, The Felissimo deal might arouse interest with the proposal that you spend  US$33 a month for 20 months and will receive 25 coloured pencils each month to build up the full set of 500 pencils.    We have no idea of the quality of the pencils and the lightfastness ratings, but then I think the pencils are likely to be sold for show rather than use.  The 25 pencils a month  appear to be in themed sets so it might be a long time before you actually get a set of colours that are actually any use to you.  

Also remember that most folk who buy a set of 120 usually find they rarely use a quarter of them.  There is no indication on what you do to replace any pencils that are used up.

Anyway here are a couple of images for you to drool over

A young artist called Cartrain has been arrested after stealing pencils from a Damien Hirst exhibition as part of an ongoing feud. It started last year when 16-year-old Cartrain used an image of Hirst’s For the Love of God to create a collage which he sold on an art website. Hirst reported him to the Design and Artists Copyright Society; Cartrain took revenge by ‘borrowing’ some pencils from Hirsts’ Pharmacy installation at Tate Britain and holding them hostage. He made a demand stating that he would “like my artworks back that DACS and Hirst took off me in November.”  Hirst had until the end of the month, said Cartrain, or the “pencils will be sharpened".

All good artistic fun you might think. Hirst, however, is not seeing the funny side. Cartrain was arrested by the police, told the pencils were valued at £500,000, and is now waiting to see if he will be charged with damaging the artwork.

PENCILS HELD HOSTAGE

MAN ARRESTED !

You may not have seen this recent item in the daily press

(September 4th )

NEW BATTERY PENCIL SHARPENER FROM DERWENT

Derwent have just announced that they have a new pencil sharpener in their range.

It is a battery driven machine with a helical cutter mechanism and uses 4 x AA batteries

Described as being able to manage pencils up to 9mm and also hexagonal as well as round ones,

it seems to offer users the opportunity to get a good point at reasonable cost ( £20 retail )

Battery sharpeners are useful even though they are not generally very economical on power sources.

March 2010

Update

Users have complained on a number of forums about the faults in these machines, and whilst there are no doubt good quality ones, the number of faulty ones reported is too high for comfort.

We await more information.

NEWS and comment from elsewhere

16th November 2009.  I have noted two areas of interest today.

On the UKCPS News Blog, there is a report on the excellent work of a UKCPS member who has just had a superb still life accepted for an exhibition

See

http://ukcps.blogspot.com/2009/11/marion-brown-exhibits-with-eac-over-60s.html

ALSO

On Katherine Tyrell’s Making A Mark Blog, there is an update on the constant debate over the favourite brand of Coloured Pencil

See

http://makingamarkreviews.blogspot.com/2009/11/opinion-poll-which-is-your-favourite.html

I suspect that the International aspect of Katherine’s readership will have led to the high score for Prismacolor, which is not so readily available in the UK.  Bruynzeel Fullcolor is also mainly available in the USA though is now being withdrawn over there.  A very interesting set of results, though, and more power to Katherine’s elbow for her reviewing efforts.

Pastel Pencils and Penciltopics site

The Pencil Topics web site now has a new Pastel Pencil section as of February 10th,

and the next pages scheduled for further work will be the Trees part 2 pages in ‘Techniques’ and the Mixed Media section

The Step by Step exercise looking at a major landscape project currently has around 50 people working along with it ) see ‘Tutorials’ ‘Detailed SBS Oct 2009’.

I am considering doing a further Step by Step exercise later in 2010 of another landscape subject and will look at signing up people later in the Spring / Summer who are interested in joining the work-along discussion group.  Keep and eye on this page, or possibly even make your interest known to me in advance

A NEW SET OF COLOUR COMPARISON CHARTS

Since Bob Ebdon carefully prepared a set of charts some time back to match colours as closely as possible across a selection of brands, we have seen more brands come on to the market and some brands have new colours, making the old comparisons out of date.

In an effort to find an alternative method of matching colours, PencilTopics website offers a freely available set of PDF files for downloading so that artists in Coloured Pencil can print off their own sets and obtain a close match across different brands.   This should help all those who refer to books and articles that quote one brand and a particular colour to work an exercise.  It should also enable artists in CP to find more easily that elusive colour they need.

You will have to print off the PDF files of the charts on to suitable paper and find your own match of colour across the different brand charts.  If you do not have a good enough printer, copies of the sets will be made available at a modest cost ( plus P & P ).  Details will follow as soon as the full sets of charts have been posted up and a good estimate can be made of the costs of doing the job.  The matches of colour will not be perfect, but will give you a better idea than comparing the painted ends of the pencils or relying on the colour charts printed by the manufacturers.

6th March 2010

SITE UPDATE AUGUST 2010

You will have seen the site has been given a major make-over.

Hopefully it will prove easier to use

- it will certainly be easier for me to keep updated !

Much of the basic information is now in position and future development will be mainly in the shape of revisions and minor additions to topics.

Some new step by step exercises may be added from the back catalogue of those used on my courses, and I will aim to spend some time looking into the production of a book or booklet on Landscape techniques for Coloured Pencil.

Don’t hold your breath though.

It might take some time.