Sunday, September 06, 2009

6th September 2009 - Who's made a mark this week?

Los Angeles fires
copyright Pat Reece

This is a watercolour sketch by Pat Reese (Pat Reece Design) of the fires burning in the hills on the outskirts of Los Angelese. You can read her blog post about making this sketch in Los Angeles County

I've featured this because, apart from one person, I can't seem to find anybody else who is drawing, sketching or painting the wildfires or their effects. I have however found some artists who have painted subjects linked to the wildfires in the past.
Wildfires are still burning out of control in Southern California near my home. The photo was taken in my neighborhood Monday morning when I set out with my paints to capture this awesome sight in oils.

As I created this painting on location small bits of ash fell and became embedded in the oil paint. They can easily be brushed off when the painting is dry but I decided to leave them now, as they impart a sense of history to this piece.
My thoughts are with all my blogging friends who live in Southern Califoria and who are experiencing the impact of the wildfires.

Congratulations to...
Art Blogs

Drawing and sketching

Have you taken a look at some of the city based Urban Sketchers blogs? Here are is the one for Seoul and some of the contributors blogs. Nice to get an eastern perspective on the urban aspects of life.

sketches of Seven Dials and Neal's Yard
Coloured Pencils and Pastels
Illustration and Fantasy Art
Painters and Painting
  • Tracy Helgeson (Works by Tracy Helgeson) is Going Abstract, Baby! - looks interesting
  • while Sarah Wimperis (The Red Shoes) has been painting at night! Check out The Night Garden and Night Light and Helford Regatta.
  • I though I must have included this previously - but apparently not - check out Outdoor Art Materials by Sadie Valeri (Sadie J Valeri) in which she reviews her kit for painting outdoors - and a few items she's got her eyes on which are used by other people.
  • Whoops! Hackney Council have been at it again - Banksy art used by Blur erased. The weird thing is that despite the zero tolerance for graffiti - even graffiti art which brings fans and visitors to Hackney from all over the world - it still took Hackney years to get round to implementing their zero tolerance policy. Maybe their arts officer could advise about the economic impact art has on its enviroment?
  • One of the reasons for my poll this month was reading artists commenting commenting on style including Robert Genn - A methodical pursuit of style

Art Business and Marketing

  • An interview with Jack Vettriano - about the money side of being an artist Jack Vettriano - including what happens when the company producing your prints goes bust!
  • Alyson B Stanfield (ArtBiz Blog) had a couple of posts this week about running artist groups. Salon is an interesting word!

Art and the Economy / Art Collectors

Art Education / Workshops / Tips and techniques

Art Exhibitions

I've been to two private views and had three posts reviewing exhibitions this week. First I posted twice about the Threadneedle Prize this week
Plus there's my Exhibition Review: Society of Feline Artists 2009 - Gayle Mason and I are both in the window!

[Update - Denise Laurent (The Painted Cat - on the Easel) and official SOFA photographer has now posted her photos of the exhibition to Flickr and this is a slideshow of work in the SOFA annual exhibition]

Art Galleries and Museums

Art History

Book Reviews

Damien Hirst

I'm not a fan as you may have realised by now.

Opinion Poll

Two posts this week:
The three most important ways you've sold art in the last 12 months are:
  • via traffic to/from your own website and/or blog (21%)
  • through commissions (21%)
  • via a gallery - as a gallery artist (15%)

Websites, webware and blogging

and finally........

Can I just seek your help please?

If you fancy two free Eurostar tickets to Brussels please read Wanted: an art competition! as I've got to come up with a good way of working out who is the most deserving person - and pretty quickly!

I hasten to add that all these references to Eurostar aren't generating any more free tickets to me. However I will be riding under the English Channel again soon because I booked and paid for our Eurostar tickets to Paris this morning for my trip to France later this month - of which 'more later' as the saying goes!

Now to start reading the Paris blogs............

6 comments:

  1. Hi Katherine,
    I can´t help you with the tickest but I can say thank you for the Robert Bruce link. Usually I don´t buy these instant life wisdoms.. but that one is a good one.
    Thanks also for adding Andrew Schick to my reader.

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  2. Katherine - Dee Farnsworth has been posting beautiful but terrifying sketches of the
    California fires here

    Thanks for the great links as usual.

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  3. Hi Katherine, I've just recently started following making a mark and I'm extremely impressed. This was another brilliantly informative and interesting post. I'll certainly be recommending your blog to all my friends :-D

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  4. Thank you to Robyn and to you Katherine, for the shout out. Still smoky out here, but at least I don't have see the flames out the front door this week.

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  5. Katherine: Is the word "salon" not used in the UK?

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  6. Alyson - 'salon' only really gets used in a historical context (17th-19th century France) in the UK. Check out wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon.

    I can't remember the last time I heard it being used to describe a group of artists in the UK. In fact I'm not sure I ever have. We just tend to call groups 'groups'. Although there is a leaning in some quarters to call them co-operatives!

    My "salon" - which has been running now for about 4 years - is called my cyberbuddy group!

    Of course the English language is what we have in common - however it is divided by an almighty big ocean - which leads to just a few differences in use of words, their meanings and pronunciation!

    For example, I'm hugely amused by the fact that every time I say "where's my rubber?" or "I'll just whizz in and out" my American friends have hysterics!

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