Sunday, September 15, 2013

15th September - Who's made a mark this week?

Virtual exhibition of "Still Alive - contemporary still life painting " - at the Mall Galleries all week.
Crops of artwork by members of the Federation of British Artists

I’m really looking forward to seeing three exhibitions tomorrow at the Mall Galleries. Two art competitions have their exhibitions on display there this week
  • the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition (see more details below) 
  • the Derwent Art Prize
Plus the “Still Alive - Contemporary Still Life Painting” by members of the national art societies which form the Federation of British Artists is also on.  You can see some of the artwork in the virtual exhibition on the Mall Galleries Shows website.

So that’s three different exhibitions at the Mall Galleries for one week only!

I shall be back there on Wednesday to find out the winner of the Derwent Art Prize.

Before I go on - who knew I would go on for so long when I started?  I wrote my 2,500th blog post yesterday so I chose a subject which might be a bit geeky but is one I'm fascinated by.  Did you see it?  (It's listed below).  I reckon the 3,000th post might be around the end of next year.

Artists and Art Blogs

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

Drawing and Sketching

  • Are you making plans for The Big Draw in October? It's the biggest drawing festival in the world.  I'll be posting more about this - in the meantime here is their Facebook Page
  • I don't know about you - but I've waited a long time to see Andrea Joseph draw using crosshatching - Andrea Joseph - crosshatching is a short timelapse film of artist and illustrator, Andrea Joseph adding cross-hatching detail to a pencilcase illustration.  It's got a hynoptic soundtrack!
  • A couple of blogs which are showing people teaching points about how to sketch
  • I’m trying to remember where I came across Don Colley’s road trip - but I forget. Anyway, this is a splendid and regularly updated website which documents - in sketches using different media - the second illustrated road trip across America of Don Colley. This road trip will cover several cities where Don Colley will be holding drawing and illustration demos for Faber Castell. His main website - where the same images have narratives - is Buttnekkiddoodles - Drawing from Life in Chicago and Beyond. Worth reviewing to see the value he gets of drawing on a mid-toned paper.
A self-proclaimed old school, Don prefers not carry any electronics including cell phones, computers or cameras on his self. Instead, his life and memories are shown through his sketches- each detailed piece reflecting more than camera lens can reveal.
Sissinghurst Rose Garden - an afternoon in August
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook, 8" x 10"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Painting

Carne Griffiths

Portraiture

  • The People's Portrait - jointly organised by the BBC and National Portrait Gallery - Voting has started (and closed) to decide which of the 12 possible candidates should have their portrait painted. Once chosen, the winner will sit for a portrait to be commission by the BBC and the NPG and displayed as part of the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection. Here's profiles of the candidates - and the winner will be announced on The One Show on Monday evening.
  • Final Stage of Tessa Portrait: Form Painting illustrates how one artist - Anna Wikitsch gets through to the final stages of a portrait.  This is her blog.

Still Life 

Wildlife Art

Who painted this?

I’ve been trying to find more difficult paintings - but people keep finding them!

Art Books



Art Business & Marketing


Licensing
Print on Demand
  • Which "Print on Demand" site for art prints do you like the best? Here's the results of the poll running on my website for the last year - Print on demand: top choices are Zazzle and Fine Art America - reviews my online poll to find out which is the favourite print of demand site for artists. Two sites top the poll.
  • It's interesting to take a look at the best selling prints based on the art handled by Bridgeman - who work in partnership with museums and collections to market their works. Mostly because this doesn't look much like a lot of the art produced today. What does that tell us?

Art Competitions

From time to time - write a one-off post about art competitions. This is one of them - To all organisers of art competitions and open exhibitions. It covers how to get an art competition or open exhibition publicised on the Internet

Art Education


Tips and techniques

Art Exhibitions


See Major Art Exhibitions in London September - November 2013. This lists all the exhibitions in London in the next three months.

Major Art Galleries and Museums - London

  • I’m going to the Press preview of Australia - the new exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts on Tuesday. The exhibition, organised in collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia opens to the public on 21 September and continues until 8 December 2013. I think this is going to be a very popular exhibition - and that’s not just because of all the Aussies who live in London!
  • Do try and get to see Rory McEwen and the Colours of Reality at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens before it finishes on the 22nd.

Major UK Art Galleries and Museums

  • The BP Portrait Award 2013 is now off on its travels - however it takes a bit of time to take down, transport and set up again. You can see it at the following museums and art galleries in the next few months:
    • Aberdeen Art Gallery (from 2 November 2013 until 1 February 2014) and
    • Wolverhampton Art Gallery (from 3 March until 14 June 2014.)

Art Societies and Art Groups

September marks the start of exhibition season for a lot of art societies and art groups.

Art Bloggers

While I may bin emails from art galleries I do take a look at the emails I receive from artist bloggers or people who have been previously featured on this blog. See the side column for more details about How to highlight your exhibition - for artist bloggers ONLY
  • Johnny Morant (Johnny Morant) has a a solo show coming up at The Rountree Tryon Gallery from the 1st to the 11th of October 2013.  Johnny tells me that The title of the show is Going Places and the focus is exactly that -a slightly chaotic visual documentary of the places I have visited and the subjects that have inspired me.  Some of his paintings have already been bought by major financial institutng dress sketching with an umbrella while sat down in the harbour while the tide was out!

Art Materials and Supplies


  • Yesterday I posted an UPDATE! Standard Specification for Artists Pastels. This highlights the challenges of producing a specification for a quality assured pastel and how the relevant technical body proposes to address this. Rather technical and absolutely fascinating if you’re a bit of a geek like me. 
  • I got to be geeky about lightfastness as I began to realise how much colour has been lost from paintings by past masters. For example - did you know that the correct title of this painting of roses by Van Gogh is “Still Life: Vase with Pink Roses” - although the pink has almost completely disappeared.
    Roses - Vincent van Gogh
    Still Life: Vase with Pink Roses
    Vincent van Gogh [Public domain], 
    via Wikimedia Commons
  • Check out David Jackson brushes - via his Facebook Page. He's a 4th generation brush maker with 43 years experience and I hear good things about his brushes
  • A website which provides an excellent discussion of the relative merits of Directors Chairs for use while painting outside 

Techies - websites and blogging


  • I went back to drafting this blog post in Google Drive - and am amazed at how helpful the automatic suggestions are for the various links I include. It saves so much time!!! I could just do with a teeny weeny bit more info about the whole URL please.

and finally..................


How many of you used crayons as a child? I came across this on the Munsell website and was entranced - Collecting a Rainbow: A Glimpse Into the World of Crayon Collecting and Crayon History with Ed Welter

2 comments:

  1. Always great to read these, "Who's made a mark?"- Also thanks very much for featuring my Skeych Inspiration Blog here, it's highly apprecited!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is beyond me what anyone can learn from these annoyingly speeded up videos. Annoying soundtrack also, on this one.

    ReplyDelete

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