Sunday, November 04, 2007

4th November 2007: Who's made a mark this week?

Orkney Birds: Sedge Warbler, Black cap, icterine warbler and garden warbler
Copyright Tracy Hall / watercolour-artist.co.uk


Congratulations to......

......all of you who got out of bed this morning and remembered you were going on a sketchcrawl today! Let us all know when you've posted your sketches....

The Big Drawing Book Review

Being away at the end of the month continued to disrupt my book reviews so I've decided to extend the Review through November - as I'm nowhere near the end! In fact, I even got as far as trying to work out how to group books! So if you still want to review a book you've still got time!

Dave's still doing stirling work....as is Rose
Meantime here are some more books being recommended by others
  • Dee Farnsworth (Dee Farnsworth) is very keen on Maira Kalman's book The Principles of Uncertainty. My guess is that this book may not appear this side of the big pond - however I have found her 'blog' post which is the finale to her year long set of articles in the New York Times. Take a look at her drawings here. I've mentioned Maira before - and some of you may be familiar with her covers for the New Yorker.
  • Thanks to Enrico Casarosa (Founder of the Worldwide Sketchcrawl) for alerting me to a blog which is completely new to me - the wonderful Book by its Cover. Lots and lots and lots of reviews of wonderful art books and sketchbooks. You can skip straight to the category which interests you most if you want. Click on the title to read the review and see more images. Don't start on this one until you have some time to spare - you have been warned!
Art Blogs
  • I found Paul /'Peacay's BibliOdyssey via Sid Leavitt's (Readers and Writers) review of Lines and Colors (nice to see some well deserved recognition for the quality of Charley Parker's writing). Anyway back to BiblioOdyssey - in basic terms it presents and explains various archival images. However to describe it as such is to miss the fact that it's loaded with good quality images of a very diverse range - and the narrative is rather interesting too. Not maybe everybody's 'cup of tea' but I like it!
  • Laura Frankstone at Laurelines is ecstatic about her new Schminke 24 pan watercolour paints. Schminke Chronicles 3: Singing the Blues is the third post on the topic in which she provides a colour chart of the all the paints in the 24 pans.
  • Karen Jurick (A Painting Today) posted her first imovie - about her palette yesterday. (I don't even know what an imovie is!) Unfortunately it's got one of those plug-ins which my laptop does not like so I need somebody to go look at it and then tell me what it's like! I'm sure it'll be fabulous and I am at this moment giving my laptop a good talking to!
  • I love the style and content of Andrea Joseph's drawings of her Sketchblog. Her pinboard wizard drawing is astounding - click on the image to get the full effect - and you can read more about it here where you can read notes about all the objects in the drawing.
  • Casey Klahn (Pastel) has got a great follow-up interview with Sheila Evans who has an interesting comment to make about the quality of camera needed for reference shots. I love Sheila's botanical pastel work of leaves in macro which recently featured on the front cover of the Pastel Journal. You can see more of her work in the galleries on her website.
Miniature Art seems to have gripped the Art Blogs I've been reading - or maybe I've been reading the Art blogs which have been doing Miniature Art recently. Whichever, for those who are interested...

Miniature Art works by Tracy Hall
copyright Tracy Hall
  • Tracy Hall (Watercolour Artist Diary) is a professional artist living in the Orkneys (islands off the north coast of Scotland) and has a deep interest in nature and animals. Three of her miniature works are featured above. Check the dimensions - each is around 2"x2"! You can see more of her work here. Tracy tells me that as a result of my recent blog post about the Royal Society of Miniature Painters,Sculpters and Gravers exhibition that she intends to submit work to various exhibitions next year. I also recommend you check out the wonderful work she has been doing for a new publication called the Orkney Book of Birds - you can see an example of her work for this in the image at the top of this post.
  • Nicole Caulfield (Art Journal) has a wonderful photo on her blog of all her miniatures framed ready for sale. Grouped together like this really makes me understand why miniature art is so collectible.
Art Exhibitions
  • Thanks again to Enrico Casarosa for drawing my attention to the Exhibition of Drawings by Georges Seurat at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition website has an online version of the exhibition in which you can see the sketchbooks and also his unique way of drawing his subject matter. If you like drawing I highly recommend you find some time to sit down with a huge steaming hot drink and go very slowly through the online exhibition and really savour the quality of his work. I had an airline trying to sell me cheap seats on new direct flights from my local airport to New York this week - and I'm very tempted!
....his incomparable drawings are among his–and modernism’s–greatest achievements. Working primarily with conté crayon on paper, Seurat explored the Parisian metropolis and its environs, abstracted figures, spaces, and structures, and dramatized the relationship between light and shadow, creating a distinct body of work that is a touchstone for the art of the twentieth century and today.
MOMA: Georges Seurat - The Drawings
Art Supplies
Websites and Blogging - and search engine optimisation

The number in the Feedburner box at the top of the right hand column is an overview of all the people who have subscribed to this blog through whatever source - plus a few bots which crawl it on a regular basis.

I've now got one overview figure (I think) because Google took over both Blogger and Feedburner. I now have my Blogger Feed directed to Feedburner and somehow or other it can now aggregate everything. Today I woke up to find my Feedburner stats look funny - and since it's dropped about a 100 it looks like people who have e-mail subscriptions through Feedblitz have been dropped out again due to problems picking up Feedblitz. Correction - the change is now reflected in my Feedburner account and it would appear they've managed to drop Google Feedfetcher subscriptions!!!

Anyway, there have been other fluctuations in feed statistics recently and people have been discussing these...........
  • The Official Google Reader Blog summed up what's happening with subscriber statistics. Feedburner - which gets a mention in the post - elaborated here. Neither are posts to read first thing in the morning or without sustenance but I think what it means is......what they said - see below. The masses who have commented or have referenced are listed after the Google Reader blog post.
What this all means if you're a feed publisher is that if you're interested in getting the most comprehensive overview of your subscribers, you should be using a service like FeedBurner or Google Webmaster Tools.
Official Google Reader Blog
Finally - I've decided what I'm doing for my sketchcrawl today - Meridien Sketching. I've just got to work out some locations which are on the Prime Meridien line and whether I sit on the meridien to sketch or sketch what is on the Meridien!

9 comments:

  1. Hi! Katherine: I was able to watch Karen Jurick's iMovie. Her movie is about Her Palette of colors, which are put on a disposable Pizza Pan purchased for about $4.00 at Wal~Mart bargain store.
    She applies over 40 colors to Her Pizza Pan palette.
    Karen applies all the colors except white and black ring the pan like individual different flavored Pepperoni slices, with the cheese trapped in the middle waiting to spread out and pull the pepperonis like pizza dough balls.

    Karen begins with stating she finds magazines that always start off with limited palettes of 8 to 10 colors a little pale for painting. Karen states how she loves color and you should use colors. Her palette starts with Browns, Neutrals, Purples, Blues, Greens, Yellows, Oranges and then Reds. The Reds she loves calling the " Lipstick Shades ". Karen does not seem to have a favorite brand. She seems to have a lot of Gamblin paints. Her favorite color is Radiant White which is put into the middle of the pan along with the blacks. There is not a brand for the Blacks. She does enjoy some of the Gray shades on the market, Violet gray etc. and uses all kinds of Payne's Gray. She really loves the Radiant White, and Holland's Bold Carribean Blue, which she says you should layout the money and invest in a tube. Karen says it last a long time, and intensifies your colors.

    She mixes and uses all the colors on the palette in Her paintings. She showed a used palette after painting and it had become an abstract of colors being mixed and moved into each other.
    This was great to see. Not only because it is by a wonderful artist. In the time I started to watch, My favorite PBR bull rider won His second Gold Buckle, and the Patriots - Boston football won against the Colts 24-20 at Indianapolis. I was on pins and needles and enjoying my last Sapporo beer. Karen it is a wonderful movie. Thank-you so much for sharing. I too have found a Radiant White. This white is awesome. Katherine I hope you can get your notebook computer to allow you to see the iMovies. These are awesome. Then you could iMovie us a sketch day.
    ((( Circle of Hugs )))

    Sherrie

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  2. Wow Sherrie - what a great review! My guess is that anybody who was not sure whether to view it or not will now want to do so!

    My laptop is sulking in the corner and is being most recalcitrant so I really appreciate having some idea of what Karen does.

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  3. thank-you so much! I am so glad you enjoyed my comments. Hope the computer gets out of the corner soon. I know computer technology is jumping by leaps and bound everyday. My iPhone is like a hand held computer.
    Have great day and thank-you for all the wonderful art information.
    sherrie

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  4. My goodness, there is at least a week of content to absorb in this post, Katherine. Before I explore the rest, I just wanted to say thank you for the wonderful treat of the George Seurat link. It's a gift.

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  5. Robyn - and this was before I started touring all my regular reads - I've got half of next Sunday's round-up post drafted already from things I missed this week due to being away.

    The Seurat online exhibition is very definitely a find!

    I am so pleased every time I come across a museum or art gallery which puts serious effort into sharing art and exhibitions with people who cannot get to the museum. I'm inclined to think there should be a competition for which museum or art gallery provides the best art experience for those viewing online. Maybe one for the end of year awards?

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  6. Thanks so much for the mention, Katherine (and for getting the birds to show up properly! Katherine rather expertly corrected my bad scan). I have really enjoyed your round up (even if it will take me the rest of the week to go through it all) and Karen juricks movie is well worth watching so I hope your laptop cooperates soon!

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  7. Well I make that two thumbs up for Karen and one for Seurat!

    You can now see the result of sketchcrawl yesterday on my other blog here. It comes with a bit of a story!

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  8. Thanks for the link, and I'm eager to explore the D. Greene one.

    Looks like the Sheila Evans link is absent.

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  9. Thanks Casey - I've now amended the post and the missing link for Sheila's website is now included.

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