Our Coloured Pencil tutor Julie Douglas has just won a prestigious Coloured Pencil Award for her artwork ‘Boy on a Swing’ pictured below. We have been lucky enough to blog about the award and the artwork and the college would like to congratulate Julie on winning this fabulous award. You can view more of Julies work and read about her on her website – Julie Douglas.
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Clare based artist Julie Douglas has just been awarded a major art prize in Atlanta, Georgia, for her artwork, ‘Boy on Swing’ in the CPSA (Color Pencil Society of America) annual exhibition. Julie won the Staedtler Award for Exceptional Merit, which was $1000. This show is highly competitive, with only 60 pieces selected out of an entry of around 1000. Julie entered for the first time last year, when it was held in Seattle, and won an award then too for her artwork ‘Dappled Son’ – both years she has been the only artist from Europe to have work included in the show.
The boy in the drawing is called Elliot Day, and Julie saw him playing at the local swings, and asked her own children to go and say hello to him and to point out his Mummy. This he did, and Julie approached her, asking if she could take some photos as she loved his hair! His mother was delighted, not least because so many people mistook him for a girl, with his lovely flowing locks. They met up again another day, for Julie to do some drawings. The bit she most looked forward to completing was the chain on the swing, so she did that first – BIG MISTAKE, as she realized that she had nothing left to look forward to except hours and hours of work!! Lesson for the future.. The artwork took about 6 weeks, and though Julie was tempted to make the trousers plain, she knew she just had to suffer a bit more and put the pattern in.
Congratulations on such a magnificent work!
Who would believe pencils are so versatile–in the right hands!