FINAL Call for Entries: Society of Wildlife Artists Annual Exhibition 2022

You have until 12 noon on Friday 19th August to get your entries in for the Open Annual Exhibition 2022 of the Society of Wildlife Artists.

The Society of Wildlife Artists seeks to generate appreciation and delight in the natural world through all forms of fine art inspired by the world’s wildlife.

This is a very popular exhibition with a lot of art collectors who visit every year. It regularly achieves good sales from the display of c.350 original artworks from both members and non-members including paintings, drawings, original prints and sculptures.

The Natural Eye Exhibition 2021- part of the East Gallery

The Annual Exhibition is called The Natural Eye and I've always thought this neatly encapsulates two important aspects of the exhibition

• firstly it's about very best of fine art inspired by the natural world
• secondly, it's also about artwork which has been drawn, painted, printed or sculpted only after encounters with wildlife i.e. it's NEVER ever copied from another artist's photograph of a wild animal - and the members of the Selection Panel can tell!

The latter reason is why you won't see a lot of endangered animals or big cats which are much photographed and omnipresent in other wildlife art exhibitions.

Although art is submitted by members and artists who live all over the world, most of the artwork is typically much more focused on the wildlife in their own localities - whether on the land, in the sky or in the water - or in places they've travelled to in order to see the birds or animals.

Birds is another aspect you need to know about. This exhibition is BIG ON BIRDS!  Those who enter open wildlife art competitions will know there is a very large subset of fanatical birders who create art - and this exhibition is no exception.

View of part of the The Natural Eye 2021 in the West Gallery

Call for Entries 

Below is the "what you need to know" to send in an entry. 

ARTISTS: Who can enter

• Any artist over 18 may submit.
• It's is NOT restricted to artists who live/work in the UK. 
• If you're an international artist you can submit artwork to this exhibition - but first make sure you understand that involves.

ARTWORK: What can you enter

• Work should be 
• based on representing the world’s wildlife and 
• should have beencompleted within the last three years.
• A maximum of six artworks - and if you are successful, all six will be hung!
• All artwork must be for sale.
• Acceptable media: 
• Work may be in any medium including drawing, painting, sculpture and original prints (if prints, please detail edition and how many are available). 
• The SWLA is keen to embrace new and innovative mediums and will accept computer-generated images as ‘original prints’. However, a digital print is only considered an original print if it was created by the artist to be realised specifically as a print. 
• Ineligible media
• Reproductions of paintings or photographs will not be accepted. 
• Photographic reproductions or mechanical prints, giclée prints, etc., that are often promoted as ‘limited edition prints’ are not acceptable.
• Inadmissible artwork
• Work exhibited previously at Mall Galleries is not admissible.
• Artwork which is about botanical subjects, pets and domestic animals, or decorative wares (such as vessels or tiles).
• Artwork which will NOT be hung
• Artworks that are poorly presented 
• or differ significantly from the photograph entered will not be exhibited.

Some of the fine art prints in the 2021 Natural Eye Exhibition - North Gallery

ENTRIES: Deadline

• The deadline for all online entries is 12 noon on Friday 19th August 2022
• you need to
• complete the online form
• pay your submission fee
• upload your digital image(s)

MONEY: How much does it cost to submit an entry and how should I price my art?

21st UKCPS Annual Open Exhibition 2022

The 21st Annual Open International Exhibition (2022) of the UK Coloured Pencil Society is now online. 

It's particularly interesting for me as I was one of the Judges this year in terms of reducing 250 images from coloured pencil artists from aropund the world to the 83 images in the exhibition which can now be viewed online. All we get as Judges was the digital image (online), the unframed dimensions and a spreadsheet to include our marked for each work. The other Judges were

• Richard Rees PPS - President of the Pastel Society
• Nuala Henry - UK Marketing Manager, Hahnemuehle

Alyssa Tidwell - Editor of International Artist magazine was the Judge making the awards

YOU too can be a Judge and VOTE for the image you think deserves the People's Choice Award. All you need to do is:

• click the images to see a larger version of each image
• complete the form on The People's Choice Award Page - and then click the submit button

The 21st UKCPS Annual Open Exhibition Award Winners

Links in the artists' names below go to their websites where you can see more of their art.

Best Picture in Show 

Best Picture in Show - Black Sea by Megan Seiter (Pic No. 241)

Megan Seiter is an American artist specializing in colored pencil still life drawings. Originally from Rhode Island, she received her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art, and in 2009 moved to California. Megan has shown her work internationally, in galleries and juried exhibitions hosted by the International Guild of Realism, American Women Artists, the Colored Pencil Society of America, and the UK Colored Pencil Society, among others.

This for me was the standout drawing in the show in terms of its HUGE impact and technical proficiency. I remember looking at it very, very closely to check it wasn't a photograph!

Reserve Best in Show

Melissa Scott Miller paints from Tower Bridge Walkway

Melissa Scott Miller has been painting from the Walkway at the top of Tower Bridge. This summer she's been its official Artist in Residence

Melissa is a portrait and urban landscape artist who has been commissioned by the Trust which runs Tower Bridge (which is owned by the City of London) to create a panoramic painting of the views from the West Walkway at the top of Tower Bridge - from City Hall and the Shard on the South Bank, across the Thames, to the views of the various buildings old and new in the City of London on the North Bank of the Thames

You can find out more about #ABridgewithaView and Melissa on this page

To immortalise the very same views in 2022, we have commissioned English artist Melissa Scott-Miller to paint what she sees from the West Walkway. A Bridge with A View is a celebration of London and an ode to this vibrant city. The project takes place throughout the summer, and will include public workshops and family activities. Visitors to the attraction will be able to observe Melissa painting during their visit and see how the artwork progresses.

The intention is that the painting will be 150cm x 100cm - or maybe a triptych - and that the City of London will sell the painting at a charity auction later this year.

This is a video of Melissa painting her second painting in response to the views of Tower Bridge’s West Walkway - which covers the Upper Decks of HMS belfast to the Dome of St Paul's Cathedral.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tower Bridge (@towerbridge)

Imaginative and stimulating art in "Planet Future" Exhibition

The theme of the annual art exhibition for sixth form colleges is "Planet Future"

This is the national art exhibition for sixth form college students. It contains a lot of very thoughtful imaginative and creative art from students at various sixth form colleges in the UK.

I was impressed by the diversity of media used, topics tackled and different approaches used to portraying messages about sustainability and the current and future risks to planet earth.

"The sustainability agenda has never been more important and the exhibition highlights students' hopes and fears about the future, while also showcasing their enormous creativity and innovation,"
Alex Burghart, former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education - who launched the exhibition.

As I began to look at the art it struck me that there's a bit of a gulf beginning to open up between art created by younger people - who are focused on things which matter a lot to them - and artwork by much older people in other exhibitions where the artwork seems to be more traditional and very often demonstrates little interest in topical issues.

 

My favourites included the following. 

• Click the links in the title to see a much larger image online. 
• I've also included links to the students where I could find them online.

Hope for the future by Ruby Currie (Woodhouse College) 

I particularly liked the use of the textile art and its use of various messages addressing many different aspects of contemporary life and issues of concern and the designs she used to catch attention. 

Pricing "Winners"

Today I'm commenting on the prices of artworks sold during the first 2-3 days of the "Winners | Award Winning Artists 2020-2022" Exhibition at the Mall Galleries. (Note: I'm going to be writing a long post about pricing in the context of the current economic climate in the near future.)

This follows my two previous posts

• REVIEW: "Winners" Exhibition at the Mall Galleries (Part 1)
• REVIEW (Part 2): "Winners" Exhibition at the Mall Galleries

This post includes 

• a chart of all sales (to date) analysed by the size of the artwork and the price category of the sold artwork.
• commentary on my conclusions about the chances of artwork selling - by size and price categories

Winners Exhibition - View of West Gallery last Friday

As most of you know, most sales in an exhibition occur during pretty early in an exhibition. Notably 

• when it goes online and 
• at the Private View before it opens to the public, 
• then in the first few days after that. 

I'm not going to Private Views routinely at the moment - and indeed I'm still walking round with a mask on given the fact Covid infection rates are rampant in London - and I've still not had it....

However I did visit last Friday - after the PV on Tuesday evening (and the rail strike on Wednesday) and the last thing I did before I left the gallery was to walk round and photograph every artwork which had sold.

I've also checked what sales have since occurred online and it's pretty much the same.

So today is an analysis along the lines of those done in previous reviews of exhibitions in these galleries. I've crunched the numbers and created an excel file with a data sheet and a chart. All sold artworks are categorised according to

• price categories are those which I observe most sales in this location
• sizes are new - and includes small, small medium, large medium and large - scaled according to the size of the artwork and NOT the framed size.

General observations on pricing

First of all though I'm going to make some general observations