Colored Pencil Society of America Explore This! 20

Colored Pencil Society of America Explore This! 20 is an international competition open to living artists 18 years or older. Artists may submit one or two original works created within three years of the exhibition. Entry fees are $15 for CPSA members (2024 membership year) and $20 for non-members. Submissions must include 1-4 images.

Entries must be predominantly colored pencil and must include some other technique, surface, or element not allowed for the CPSA International Exhibition, such as another medium (ink, watercolor, pastel, acrylics), collage or montage, artist-prepared surface, or three-dimensional surface. Work must be completed on or after January 1, 2021. Artwork must be the original concept, design, and execution of the submitting artist. Reference photos must be taken personally by the artist, though use of references created by others is allowed if incidental to and not the main focus of the artwork. Artwork created as a pastiche is allowed provided the work is sufficiently altered to make the parody obvious and the original is not copyrighted.

Not allowed: work done with 100% colored pencil on a single 2D surface; work that has appeared in any previous CPSA Explore This! exhibition; collaborative work executed by more than one artist; work based on or copied from AI-generated images; work produced by applying colored pencil exactly over a printed or digital image; work constructed from actual colored pencils; or alteration of artwork after submission. Awards include a $2,000 cash award for Best of Show and EXPY Award, plus up to 15 lesser cash amounts and product awards. A list of selected artists will be posted at www.cpsa.org by January 15, 2023.