Thursday, January 20, 2011

Art Competitions, Shows, and Juried Exhibitions




This artshow website features art competitions, art shows, and juried exhibitions across the world, across the country, and across Texas. I'm posting this now because some of the deadlines are coming up soon. There are five long pages to choose from, featuring every medium from paint to ceramics to fiber arts.

Two upcoming shows in our area will happen in Nachogdoches and in Richardson. The Nachogdoches show is the Texas national 2011 Art Show and Exhibition. The Richardson show is 19th annual Colored Pencil Society of America juried show.

Colored Pencil Society of America

http://www.cpsa.org/

The Colored Pencil Society of America sponsors two competitions each year. One, the annual juried show held in conjunction with its annual conference, is for works created exclusively in colored pencil. That competition's deadline is March 31st.

The other, the "Explore This!" competition, is for mixed media explorations that include colored pencil as one of the media. The deadline for this competition last year was November 15th, so I'm guessing it will be some time about then for this year also.

The library has a number of books on creating with colored pencil and mixed media. Here's a sampling:




Check the Harris County Public Library catalog for these and other books at our online website http://www.hcpl.net

Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Painter's Post

"The Painter's Post: A Daily Aggregration that Artists and Other Creative People may find Useful." As the title suggests this is international news, weather, and sports about art. http://painterspost.com/

Woody Gwyn

Woody Gwyn, southwestern landscape and figure painter par excellence, believes that landscape painting is a figment of its time. His contemporary paintings often contain highways because that's how we moderns get out into the countryside to see the landscape. Born in San Antonio, raised in west Texas; he used to teach at Texas Tech. I believe he now lives in Alburquerque. Here's his website (from which the image left, an oil on linen called "Road Cut", is copied): www.woodygwyn.com/ Peter Sacks wrote a book about him called Woody Gwyn; I'd be happy to order it for you by interlibrary loan. If you go to http://www.hcpl.net/and click on the Books tab, you'll see the Interlibrary Loan page on the drop-down menu.

Art in Black and White

A lot of us received charcoal and conte crayon at the Christmas gift exchange. Let me inspire you to use it. As I walked by the art shelves the other day, Tom Feelings' The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo caught my eye. As soon as I opened it I was blown away by the amazing composition, command of value, and emotional impact of his gray scale paintings.
You can request a copy for yourself from http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1P9519720029D.249795&menu=search&aspect=subtab13&npp=60&ipp=325&spp=60&profile=webcat&ri=&term=&index=.GH&term=middle+passage&index=.TH&term=feelings&index=.AH&term=&index=.SH&aspect=subtab13&x=41&y=2#focus

New Zealand Artists


New Zealand artists have a wonderful website for the viewing and sale of their artwork. Here's the url: http//www.artfind.co.nz
This oil painting, taken from the site, is by Allan Batts. It's called Flowers of Harakeke. Harakeke is Maori name for New Zealand flax (Formium tenax), a plant sacred to them, from which they made rope, medicine, clothing, and more. We can now buy that plant here to grow in our own gardens.