Tuesday, March 4, 2008

New Rules for UKCPS

There are some new rules for the 7th annual UKCPS Open International Exhibition this year. Here is what was printed in the March issue of the UKCPS newsletter Talking Points:

The 2008 Open International Exhibition is to be held in Bristol at the Royal West of England Gallery in October. Internationally there has been a move to tighten up the guidelines ruling how an artist is expected to complete a work which is submitted for Exhibition, and the UKCPS has decided to follow the changes brought in by the CPSA for their exhibitions in the USA. This aims to ensure that work accepted will be entirely the original work of the submitting artist. If you work from photographs, you must have taken the photo yourself. This change will exclude photos from all outside sources including copyright free Galleries, books and magazines. The use of an image composed by someone else means that your artwork is not entirely your own and original. Similarly, any work completed with outside assistance is not entirely your own work and this means the exclusion of work completed on courses and workshops and also work which has been displayed as a ‘step by step’ exercise over the Internet on sites such as Scribbletalk.com and Wet Canvas.com where other artists comment and make suggestions. An essential point is that the completed image should demonstrate your own drawing skills.

Copyright is becoming a very ‘hot’ topic these days and breaches of copyright on images like logos and registered designs are increasingly the subject of legal action. We recommend that you seek advice if your picture includes a copyright design as a substantial part of the whole image.

The part I am concerned about is the point that I bolded. I completely agree with some of it. I salute them for creating the rule that you can not submit an image that is a copy of someone else's photograph. But although I agree you can't submit a collaboration, getting a critique from peers I do not believe should be counted against a work. The HOURS of sweat and tears put into the composition and execution of a work is not lost by a fellow artist saying to take an inch off the left side or to intensify some darks.

Take a look at these threads from popular forums:

Here's my UKCPS entry last year which I won first place with. It was not a WIP and noone offered any crit.
http://www.scribbletalk.com/showthread.php?t=3965

Now here's one I was thinking about entering in competiton. http://scribbletalk.com/showthread.php?t=4904 It is not a work in progress thread, but I did get some feedback. Someone said I should darken the area behind the cups a bit to set them off a little more. Although I didn't post the post after, I did make it a wee bit darker behind the cups. Does that mean that this piece is not solely mine? Does that little bit of advice from a peer (not an instructor of mine) make this a collaboration?

As I am writing this, the thread I started at Scribbletalk asking about this has been being posted on. There is some good information/insight in there:

Also here is a post by Katherine Tyrrell on this topic on her blog Making a Mark -

& another post on the subject on Gayle Mason's blog Fur in the Paint

SG Chipman adds his two cents on the topic

I also just want to say I've written a post about the photograhy side of this topic and will post that tomorrow.

4 comments:

hbedrosian said...

Wow, the UKCPS rules seem to be very strict, but I can see their point. Nicole, I wouldn't think that the fact that you received input from other artists would make any of your work ineligible, though.

I'm not applying for the UKCPS, but I do generally take my reference photos, except for some of my self-portraits (I have set up some photographs using the camera timer, but this isn't always ideal so I ask my husband to take them!) It seems to me that a cp work that is closely based on a professional photographer's work should almost be in a different category than someone who is working from their own photographs or who applies more creativity in deviating from reference photos.

Michael Finley said...

Looks like to me that you need a separate work for contests run by UKPCS.

The comments about “not entirely your own work” and a “derivative work” seem inflammatory to me. May be a culture thing.

An author has an editor, an athlete a coach, an actor a director. Critique is part of the creative process for many.

Unknown said...

Seems like I have woken up to the CP artist community very concerned and raving about this. I'm not a CPSA member, but it's definitely good information for me to keep in mind as I go through the process of learning to use my CPs and hopefully using it at some point as serious work, not just for the learning process as a student.

Solve it by inviting the artists to your house and have them critique it there LOL. no, but seriously... Michael makes a great point:

An author has an editor, an athlete has a coach, an actor a director..... someone should bring that up to CPSA/UKCPS

Kim Ratigan said...

Great post!

My biggest "critic" is my husband. He is not an artist, but he has a good eye, composition wise.
Is he not allowed to give me a critique on pieces that go to a show??
This is one weird rule, and I don't see them being able to enforce it.

Kim R.