If you are interested in having your work in the calendar, (there is no set artistic requirements) please submit a “web” quality photo of your artwork for selection in the form below. You must be an Australian OR New Zealand Artist in order to enter!
If your artwork is chosen, you will be notified by email and required to supply a large high resolution 300dpi of your artwork. If you cannot supply this please do not put forward your entry (we can not print from the “web version” or it will be blurry).
Please note:  In past years we have received many artworks of the same subject so in order to produce a calendar that has a variety of subjects and styles your artwork maynot be chosen simply because we have too many of the same subject (ie. one year we had alot cats & animals submitted ) so please think about this in the artwork you are submitting for selection and please try to not take it too personally if your artwork is not selected.

To Become part of our Australian Coloured Pencils 2017 calendar,  submitting your entry by filling in the form below.

Entries will close Friday 18th of November 12pm.

Please fill in all the details below, if you have any questions please ask them in the comments or in our facebook group.

Sorry. This form is no longer available.

The post Call for entries for the 2017 ACPN – Coloured Pencil Artists Calendar appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.

Julie Podstolski’s latest exhibition is opening this week and is running from September 17th to October 2nd 2016.

Fascination: Maiko, Geiko, Kyoto celebrating maiko and geiko (geisha) of Kyoto.

I have had the wonderful experience to have seen Julie’s work in real life myself and I can express how beautifully elegant her work is to see up close its just amazing!
If you are over in WA can I suggest you definitely make the time to go along and see her work for yourself.

To find out more about the exhibition and find out about her Artist Talks, please head on over to Julie’s blog for more information: https://juliepodstolski.wordpress.com/2016/09/07/fascination-maiko-geiko-kyoto/

The post EXHIBITION – Julie Podstolski appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.

The conversion charts help artists to work out which pencils to substitute when the brands they have are different from the ones used in a tutorial, class or workshop. The Comparison charts have colour swatches, for every single colour, on four different surfaces including Fabriano Artistico, drafting film, black mat board, Colourfix Suede, Mi Teintes Tex and Stonehenge. These charts assist you in working out which colours show up best on a black surface and which brands and colours give the look you are after on your favourite surface.

Now with 55 pages, the new version includes conversions and colour swatch comparisons for the following brands:

• Prismacolor Premiers (including 18 new colours)

• Faber Castell Polychromos

• Caran D’ache Pablos

• Caran D’ache Luminance

• Derwent Artist

• Derwent Coloursoft

• Derwent Drawing

• Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor

The charts are available from Karen’s website here:

http://www.karenhullart.com/Coloured-Pencil-Conversion-and-Comparison-Charts.php

The post NEW: Coloured Pencil Conversion Charts – By Karen Hull appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.

Website address:            www.carterarts.com.au (coming soon)
Facebook Address:         https://www.facebook.com/cARTer-Arts-1575262719398741/
Instagram:                          @carter_arts
Location:                             Central Coast, NSW, Australia

Please tell us a little about how you got started in coloured pencil art.

Being a folk artist who has preferred the more decorative and realistic style, I have always loved art and attending many exhibitions. After visiting a gallery where a variety of artists were exhibiting and demonstrating their particular art skills and style on the Central Coast, and seeing Belinda L. doing her stuff, I was very keen to try and attend her workshop in Ettalong, NSW on the following January 2015. After that workshop and much encouragement from Belinda, I was hooked and I have been drawing ever since.

What do you like about using coloured pencils in your artwork?

For me, it is the precision and photo realism that I can achieve and a sense of peace that it gives me as you zone out into a happy place creating.

Do you have any favourite brands or surface to work on? If so please tell us about it.

I have found over the time that I have been drawing with coloured pencils, and following various artists that often the pencils get the spotlight and the support (canvas or paper) often not mentioned. I have learnt that paper used plays a very big part in how the various pencils interact on the medium. When drawing with pencils such as Prismacolors, which are wax based, I lean towards Stonehenge as its surface allows more layers than other papers. I also use Canson Mi Teinte often when I use Polychromos pencils because they behave better with that paper than the Prismacolours if you have a heavy hand such as myself.  I have experimented with watercolour paper with these pencils and whilst it gives a good result, nothing compares to Stonehenge in my opinion. Stonehenge also  allows for mixed mediums so it is very versatile.

Do you have any particular themes or subjects in your art? What are they and why ?

I love drawing wild animals; in particular the big cats, however a stray zebra, elephant & giraffes have slipped into my repertoire!  The reason I enjoy drawing anything you could find on a safari, is because they are such majestic creatures. As a close second, I rather like flowers, predominantly Australian flora due to their beauty and uniqueness with nothing else in the world like them.

 Have you won any awards for you art please tell us a bit about them. Or do you have any exhibitions you would like to advertise?

Oooh that is a hard one, I haven’t put any of my work on exhibitions as yet, focusing on developing my pencil art and style, as it is such a different medium to acrylic or watercolour, but I will do so in the near future.  I am also increasingly asked to produce artwork and I expect to open an online shop.

Check out my instagram page to see my journey with pencils and see me put the ART in cARTer_Arts!

Thankyou so much Sylvie, for being one of our Featured Artists and sharing your story.

Please make sure you leave a comment below for Sylvie or head on over to our facebook group or her instagram profile @carter_arts.

All images copyright of the featured artist and may not be reproduced without written permission. © Sylvie Carter All rights reserved.

The post Featured Artist- Sylvie Carter appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.

As the title implies, this adult colouring book is far from average! Designed and produced in Tasmania, the book features heavyweight acid-free paper, ideal for framing. Are you up to the challenge? RRP: $24.95, but if you order through the author, Richard Klekociuk, you can have it posted anywhere in Australia for a total of $28.
Email: artkleko@gmail.com

[themify_button style=”large yellow rounded” link=”https://www.facebook.com/youaddcolour/” target=”_blank” ]Visit ‘You Add Colour’ on Facebook to find out more [/themify_button]

The post Not your average Adult Colouring Book by Richard Klekociuk appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.

This calendar is a collection of Australian Coloured Pencil artists who have generously donated the use of their artwork for this collaborative calendar. We hope this this calendar helps support each and everyone of these artists and the Australian Coloured Pencil community as a whole.

It features artists Richard Klekociuk, Susan Robjant, Jennifer Ridge-Cooke, Melinda Van Slobbe, Leah Latham Jane Monk Janet Mayes Heidi Cooper Smith Nola Sindel Leanne Moss Robyn Jean Grace Garnet Rebecca Koller  – Thankyou to all of you who have generously donated the display of your artwork in the calendar. Thankyou also to everyone who submitted work for the calendar. We had lots of animal photos this year!!

Australian Coloured Pencils Network Calendar

Small proceeds from the sale of this calendar go towards funding the ongoing work of the Austrailan Coloured Pencils Network which requires ongoing fees to keep it running currently funded by myself.

Please buy and share the calendar amoungst your networks –

[themify_button style=”large green rounded” link=”http://www.redbubble.com/people/belinda/calendars/17600090-2016-australian-coloured-pencils-network” target=”_blank” ]Visit / Buy the 2016 ACPN Calendar[/themify_button]

The post 2016 ACPN Calendar – Celebrating Australian CP Artists! appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.

During my journey over to Perth recently and meeting with Julie Podstolski and  Ann Kullberg, we had a a little discussion about the ACPN.

I shared with them some experiences I have had in sharing the concept of ACPN with my own workshop participants as well as we discussed what the perception was that the ACPN is all about in terms of the website, group etc. One of my frustrations is that there seems to be a hesitation from people, when talking about the ACPN (thats my own perception). One conclusions we came to is that there is probably some confusions about What the ACPN is, and how people can be involved.

So today, I am trying to break it down for those of you who may be a bit confused as to what the ACPN is, “WHO” its for and “HOW” you can participate and/or more importantly “WHY”.

The ACPN (Australian Coloured Pencils Network) is what I can best describe as – A group for Australian and New Zealand Coloured Pencil Artists of all levels. It is a coming together of people through the website, newsletter, directory and social media so that we can connect with one another, share resources and collaborate as a community around coloured pencils and our common thread is that we also come from Australia & New Zealand.  There is no other group, committee, or society that does this in Australia or New Zealand (that i am aware of). There are ofcourse societies and groups from overseas that do this. We are unique over here though that we are spread quite far apart, there isn’t really an opportunity or there isn’t enough of us to form groups locally, so we do it online.

It is run by me Belinda Lindhardt. I am by no means the “ruler” or judge, I just feel like i have the skills and facility to provide this for people, it is how i learnt coloured pencils and its something I am passionate about -bringing people together, sharing information and I love pencils – so I do it. I am ultimately governed (i feel ) by the what is good for the group as a whole and I like to get feedback regularly from the members of the group as to directions of the group.

WHO is it for? – People are invited to join our network no matter what level they are at with pencils there is no “assessment or requirement” to join. There is also currently no fee to join. Industry suppliers to us are invited to contribute so that they can share their information to us and we will share it with our members who are interested. Our main pre-requisite is that its for Australian and New Zealand residents who are interested in coloured pencils. – That’s it.

WHY?- The aim of the ACPN is to support artists and promote coloured pencil art in Australia. Coloured pencil art IS quite different to other mediums, its good to have a place you can talk about pencils, papers, techniques with others that will understand, if you do this in painting group likely you can be looked at quite strangely, I have even heard of people being told that pencils aren’t a really medium and that they must paint or not come along to the group!   In Australia our access to supplys are different to that of overseas, so its good to ask questions and find out information.  Collectively if we are collaborating as a group it will provide more opportunities for artists. Currently the ACPN exists in the online world but I hope to one day with enough participating we will be able to bring together a number of artists in real life in Australia for the love of pencils.

HOW – What are the opportunities, that the ACPN has to offer you?

If you are a beginner or learning you might like:

(click on the links to go there)

• Connect with other ACP artists in our facebook group (participate in our monthly inspiration challenge) or
• Become a ACPN member (for free) and post in our forum. Post your work get help / feedback here also.
  
• Like our page on facebook and follow updates and news posted to our blog.
• Join our newsletter (currently comes out quarterly) for important news.
• Read our Beginners Tips articles on our website, and find links to other resources throughout the internet about coloured pencils.
• Find out about workshops, events etc through our website.

If you are a professional* coloured pencil artist, you might like any of the above and/or:

* Professional is that you are marketing your art to sell, teaching or attending workshops, entering competitions or you are a supplier/manufacturer of coloured pencil related products.

•  **Become a featured ACPN member – have your artwork / listed on our network.
• **Send your marketing information and be promoted through our network.
• Send your work in for consideration for our end of year calendar. Keep an eye out for a call for entries.
• Enter into our online exhibition, we have been holding these for the past 5 years with some great prizes.  (Call for entries happen in about September)
• If you are a tutor, send your information for your workshop to be promoted.
• **If you are a blogger we would love to see how we can support one another.
• If you are a instagramer, #auscp or connect with us on @auscp to have your work featured on the site and for us to promote you through instagram.
• If you are having an exhibition we would love to share your information to help you get the word out.
• You can also place a link to your website through advertising on our website, newsletter or directory for a small fee. This fee helps the upkeep of the ACPN.

There are lots of ways you can be involved, I have tried to accommodate for a variety of people in a few different ways,  as people will use the internet differently and there is so many ways we can connect with one another. Ultimately it all comes down to a central place which is this website from which you can then go through to anyone of our avenues as what works for you.

Most of all its really about connecting with other coloured pencil artists, you don’t have to JUST work in pencils, many of us I find come from graphite, painting or other mediums and some people just want to see if pencils are a good fit, others in the group will also be using other mediums as well as pencils and many of my coloured pencils friends use other media and come in and out of pencils. That’s all ok. Some professional artists work only in pencils, and are involved in the groups helping all the new friends that come along! That is awesome and that is why this was created in beginning – to help one another.

So, with that I will leave you with I hope a clearer understanding of the ACPN, I always welcome feedback comments or queries please pop them below or send a email for questions.   – Belinda

** Send an email to sharppoint@colouredpencils.com.au we would love to support you.

Most importantly, Please show your support through posting to our facebook group or forum, contributing in our discussions or submitting your work to you to our online exhibition. The network only really exists through the community it caters for, so any little contributions you make in terms of your input are what drives others and then we all grow!

The post What is the Australian Coloured Pencils Network? appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.

If you haven’t already picked up Instagram are kinda curious but don’t know where to get started.

Here is a brief run down on what, why and how to do Instagram.

What is Instagram?

The definition on Wikipedia is:

Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr.

This is a pretty good definition in my opinion but in other words you take photos then you share them through the instagram app. Other instagram users can find your photos but the photos can also be spread out to other areas like facebook, twitter etc.

Why use Instagram?

There are a few of my reasons why instagram is good for artists:

• If you are marketing your art, you will be wanting to get your art out to many people rather than having it sit in your studio waiting to be seen. By posting your art “out there” you will be sending it to the people on instagram who follow you, but also if you add hashtags to your photo it will also go out to other people.  Anyone who looks up a hastag that you have used will find your post so you can reach some people or groups of people who might not already be a fan of your work.  Some of these people  might not use facebook (or follow your website, twitter etc) so its a good way to get in touch with new people or target groups of people. There are businesses who post or follow trends on instagram there is a huge scope to tap into areas that are not currently used. Its also a great way to connect with these people instantly. Its on their phones afterall.

• By using hashtags you can target areas specific to you to get to these people so this might be in subject matter ie. #portraits, #colouredpencils but it can also be in location so eg. i live on the central coast nsw i will often hastag #centralcoast #centralcoastnsw so that means that if anyone is looking for other people in my area or artists in my local area my posts will come up and i can connect with these people. So its quite effective in a way thats different to others forms of social media.

• Obviously it is visual ie. it uses photos, so unlike twitter your not limited by characters, you can post your work in photos, and it gets your message across instantly but the benefit is that you can also include text as well. It’s generally a good idea to post lots of  your artwork with some good hashtags but a few photos about YOU as the artist is a good idea as well so people can find a connection with you as the artist or like i mentioned above your local area. Unlike twitter and facebook Instagram is not limited by the number of hastags you have in your post so its great in that regard. You can also post a hashtag later and it will get picked up or you can tag a friend if you want them to see a photo that you have just seen.

• Probably one of the most crucial ones for me is that its quick and easy, i am constantly taking photos on my phone to capture the moment particularly in class.  I can take a photo write a quick message and upload it pretty quickly whilst on the go. I don’t need to be at my computer and write a big long post if i had to wait until that happened i would rarely post anything. You can also set it to pull your instagram photos and post automatically to your blog if you wish and I do that myself on my own blog at www.creativehardt.com.au/blog)

Now to the how…

Like with any new “thing” to learn I always find the best thing to do is jump in and do it. Don’t be scared!

Don’t be too overwhelmed by trying to learn all the ins and outs to start with, that will come once you familiarise yourself with it, just do it a few times a week for a little while to see if you can work it into your weekly schedule. Again its about connecting to other people, not whether you necessarily enjoy it yourself, if you really want to get your art out there.

Steps to getting started:

1. Start by downloading the app and signing up for an account on your phone.
2. Try posting a few pics either from photos you have on your phone or take a new photo. Instagram has some great filters that can make your photos look better but you don’t have to use these if its of artwork i often will post with no filter.
3. Use the search button (magnifying icon)  to find people “users” you know and follow them. Users start with at @ symbol try searching for “@auscp” – oh that’s us Also see our list of Australian Coloured Pencil Artists using instagram at the bottom of this post.
4. When you post your photo type a small message and try adding a couple of hashtags the good thing is once you have added the hashtags once you don’t have to type them in everytime they should come up automatically that you can paste in through autocorrect .. or you can have text file you can copy and paste your common ones when you get more advanced.
   • HASHTAGs to try are : #auscp, #colouredpencils, #australianartist, #drawing, #pencils

As a pencil artist if you use the hast tag #auscp your photos will be grabbed and automatically collected with other Australian Coloured Pencil artists who use this hashtag and your photos / artwork is automatically displayed on this site, its a neat way of people being able to find you and you finding everyone else.

• Next step is (maybe you do this a bit later if you feeling a bit overwhelmed) search on “hashtags” or “users” that interest you and start to follow them, then everytime you log into instagram you will be able to see your selection of photos from people that you follow.
• TIP for advanced users: A really good tool for you to view your instagram posts on your computer is http://iconosquare.com.  You can’t post photos to your account from there but you can comment and view and do hastag research, it an easier way to manage your account if you are on your computer.

Australian Coloured Pencil  Artist Instagram Users

(please send me your details if your not on this list)

Australian Coloured Pencil network – @auscp #auscp

Belinda Lindhardt – @bellind

Karen Hull – @karenhullart

Julie Podstolsk – @juliepodstolski

Michelle Ripari – @artmripari

Susan E. Robjant – @susanerobjant.art

Jennifer Ridge-Cooke – @jmridgecookeart

Robyn Jean Grace Garnet –@robyngarnet

I hope this helps, please leave any questions below.

The post Instagram for artists – What do you need to know? appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.

Today I wanted to share some fabulously different but wonderful work by our very own Karen Hull.

Watch the video below to see how the artwork was created,  in which she uses coloured pencils with acrylic and resin! Amazing work Karen!

Watch it here:

Please visit Karen’s website at: http://www.miniatureartbykhull.com/

The post Amazing what you can do with pencils, new work by Karen appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.

Starting with the basics – What is solvent?

Solvent is a liquid you can use to blend your coloured pencil layers together. There are a few different types of solvent which is also often used in painting such as odourless sovlent.

The most commonly used solvent by coloured pencil artists is called Zest-it.

Zest-it is a citrus based, non toxic solvent that does not leave any residue on the paper which is why cp artists love it.

How to do it?

Apply layers of pencil to your paper (5-6 layers usually before it will blend effectively) and then apply the solvent with an applicator to the pencil and paper.

Allow to dry and then apply more pencil.

You can repeat this process as many times as you require to get the blending effect you are after.

Why and When to do it?

Artists use solvent when they want to blend the pencil layers together to acheive a rich colour or certain texture that requires alot of depth. Often giving the pencil a painterly or pastely kind of effect.

This technique of blending helps artists to also get a large number of layers onto their artwork and gets the pencil right into the grooves and ridges of the paper.
Examples of when it can be used could be for smooth textures such as fabric or glass where you want a very smooth visual end result.Can also be used if you wish to have a very vibrant colour and blending colours into one another such as on a background.

Note: Not all coloured pencil artists use solvent, it really depends on the artists individual style and preference.

Please watch my demonstration video for using solvent.

TIPS

• – It’s best to have at least around 5 layers of pencil down before you start using solvent or you wont see much effect.
• – You cannot remove pencil after you have used solvent so you must make sure you have a established your drawing to what you want before using it.
• – Only use a small amount on your applicator.
• – You can use a makeup pad or cotton tip to apply and apply in the direction of your subject or in a circular motion.

The post Part 3 – The Why, How, When of layering, burnishing and solvent. appeared first on Australian Coloured Pencils Network.