The International Contemporary Printmakers Competition

Competition brief:

There is no specific brief, other than all of the images supplied must be produced through a printmaking proccess.

This competition is quite appealing as printmaking is something that I enjoy and I would like to develop my skills in this area further. I have a limited experience of lino, screen, mono and dry etch printing and feel that experiementation within these areas (and how I can combine them) could result in the production of some images which are suitable to enter into this competition.

Submisssion details -

1. Up to 3 prints may be entered
2. Prints to be no larger than A4 in size (if smaller then these should be mounted on to A4 paper/card)
3. Prints to be named, signed and sent in a hard copy format, along with an artists CV and submission form. (Competition address - Pat King,  Comedy Studio,  Main Road,  Christian Malford,  Wiltshire,  SN15 4BS,  U.K.)
4. An email must also be supplied, including JPEG images of each print, and a 400 word artists statement

Entry Fee - £40

Competition deadline - 12th June 2011

Illustrative practises module deadline - 11th March 2011

The illustrative practises module deadline is before this competition deadline, meaning that although I would need to complete my selection of prints for competition entry before the module deadline, if I wanted to develop these prints further at a later time I would be able to.

Competition judges

Pat King BA  Curator        

Jesse Leroy Smith RA    

John Howard RE              

The above are all contemporary printmakers and painters. If I were to enter this competition then I feel that it would be important to research the work of these printmakers to find out the style of prints they produce and if this influenecs their evaluation of other work. I also feel it will be important to look at previous winning entries and see if there appars to be any trend in the style of work selected and commended by the judges.

Competition prizes (More awards to be announced)

First prize
The winning print, will be reproduced in full colour in the catalogue, together with your details.  This artist is invited to have a show the following summer in Cornwall, with a full page in the catalogue of all the submitted works, and will be invited, to act as part of the jury for the A4 Print International the following year.

A4 Special prize

Subscription to printmaking today

Best Emerging Talent Prize

2 day workshop at the Hand Print Studio Penzance

Although these prizes are not as prestigious as any of the other competition prizes I have looked at, I feel that the freedom of the brief in this competition and its nature make this currently the most appealing competition I have looked at. Winning this competition may not generate the contacts or work which would be provided by winning another of the competitions I have researched, but it would be a good edition to my CV and portfolio, allowing me to show a breadth of different working styles. This competition could provide a foothold into the printmaking industry and provide work generated in this area.

I feel quite inspired by this competition. It would allow me to experiement within this area and develop my work further. The freedom provided by this competition brief would hopefully mean that I can regain my creative interest in illustration.

Presently, I feel that to begin considering an entry for this competition I need to first research the judges of the competition and previous winning entries. It is also important to begin experimenting again with each of the print maing techniques I have knowledge of and to find out the types of imagery I can produce with these.