UPDATE re. copyright infringement, exhibition reviews and 'who painted this'

This post is about

• copyright infringement and what I'm doing about it
• exhibition reviews
• who painted this - and whether it can continue

Copyright infringement - and what I'm doing about it

I got very fed up this week with the extent of copyright infringement experienced by this blog in recent times. There has been wholesale scraping of content with virtually all the words and pics from some posts ending up on more than one other site.

It's enough to make me want to give up.

Instead of which I've started to hammer the scrapers via Google and, on the face if it, it looks like I'm making progress but need to do more as they scraped yesterday's post

This is what now happens if somebody puts the website description into Google. Note the narrative from Google at the bottom of the page.

Spot Google's Response within Google Search
to the scammer website https://richelleart.com

So I will have to spend more time next week chasing down this toerag - and OTHERS I've also spotted - which means less time for posting about art and exhibitions!

An alternative approach to exhibitions

I'm also finding that I need to break up long posts about exhibitions into parts - as I still get tired post surgery and need to find time for all the exercise I'm doing! 

However I can mix art and exercise! 

• I managed to walk from Green Park tube to Embankment Tube via Colnaghi, Messums and the NEAC exhibition at the Mall Galleries (6,142 steps and 4.6km walked - which is way more than I could manage pre-surgery)
• AND collecting an artwork I bought en route - although I had to ask TFL staff for help getting up and down steps at both ends of my tube journey home!

On my way home with my recent artwork purchase!

So I'm uploading my photos of the paintings in the NEAC 2022 Exhibition - as hung on the walls of the Mall Galleries - to my Facebook Page - with commentary.  This follows the practice I started to adopt pre-surgery for much the same reason. More time for exercise means less time for reviews.

Today I uploaded the East Gallery. Tomorrow I will upload the West Gallery and then on Tuesday the North Gallery.

I'm also going back next week to have another look at the exhibition as it's on for an extra week because of the train strikes and doesn't finish until 9th July.

Who painted this?

I'm trying to work out how to continue with Who Painted this? given that these posts were being targeted by the scammer.

I've had to switch off comments as they were just sucking in spam and that was becoming VERY time-consuming to get rid of.

I'm thinking along the lines of creating a special email address just for this art challenge which would then mean that 

• all responses to the challenge would use the email address to send in their response.
• every time a spammer uses it within my gmail account I can then report the abuse and spam email address to Google - see https://support.google.com/a/answer/178266

However all of this depends on my tolerance for the tedium of dealing with spammers and scammers.

I like getting results - so I'm not giving up yet. 

Portrait of Michael Eavis to hang in National Portrait Gallery

A portrait of Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis by Sir Peter Blake has been commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery - and has been unveiled at the Glastonbury Festival today – Peter Blake’s 90th birthday

The portrait will also be displayed at the National Portrait Gallery when it reopens in Spring  2023

Michael Eavis at Glastonbury by Peter Blake. 2022.
Photographer: Damian Griffiths, image courtesy of Waddington Custot.

The portrait depicts Michael Eavis standing in front of the festival’s iconic Pyramid Stage at Worthy Farm, where the 50th festival is being hosted for the first time in three years, following cancellations due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the background is a dairy cow and in the foreground is some rather lush and very naturalistic green grass. I love the wrinkly knees!

In summary a famous artist age 90 with a white beard, best known for co-creating the sleeve design for the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has painted a portrait of another old bloke, age 86 - with a white beard - who founded and hosts the Glastonbury Festival on his farm in Somerset.

First official portrait of Duke and Duchess of Cambridge unveiled at Fitzwilliam Museum

Yesterday morning the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to see a new portrait of them both. This is the first official joint portrait. 

It was painted by British portrait artist Jamie Coreth. The artwork was commissioned in 2021 by the Cambridgeshire Royal Portrait Fund as a gift to the people of Cambridgeshire. It also marks the Duke's recent 40th birthday - on Tuesday this week.

More about both the portrait and the painter below.

NEAC Annual Exhibition 2022 opens tomorrow

The Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club (NEAC) opens to the public tomorrow at the Mall Galleries in London.

It's open 

• from Thursday 23rd June to Saturday 9th July 
• Hours are from 10am to 5pm every day, except the last when it closes at 2pm.

You can also view the exhibition online

• on the Mall Galleries website - sales are ONLY handled via this link if purchasing online
• on the NEAC website

a snapshot of artwork available to view on the NEAC website

You can also order an Exhibition Catalogue. The catalogue used to be available online via Issuu - but I can't find a link to a copy of the 2022 catalogue.

There are five FREE events taking place during the exhibition (access via exhibition ticket). You can find details of events on the events listings:

• here on the NEAC website - and 
• here on the Mall Galleries website

They include

• The Magic of Drawing with Neil Pittaway NEAC
• Action: The Art of Painting the Moving Figure with Toby Ward NEAC
• Designing and Painting a Portrait Sketch in Oils with Andrew James NEAC RP
• The Perception of Narratives with Robert E. Wells NEAC RBA
• The Process of Sketchbooks with Robert E. Wells NEAC RBA

The Tate Mark Making Coursework Guide

The Tate website has a Student Resource called the Mark Making Coursework Guide

It covers the different ways artists can express themselves using different methods and approaches to mark making.

These include:

• What is mark making? Why use gestural qualities?
• Capturing life
• Expressing emotions
• Abstract mark making
• Graffiti and Graffiti Inspired Art
• Digital marks and making your mark using sound

Each section highlights artworks by different artists in the Tate Collection to highlight the points being made.

Mark making often does not get covered well in art instruction guides and book. This is a useful resource for those wanting to learn more about art.

NOTE: I'm trying to model how you can reference content on other sites without wholesale scraping of that content.  Right now, a LOT of my time at the moment is being spent going after VERY LAZY people who are scraping lots of content from my site - except they take it all and change less than 5% of the words!!

I'm not posting images because of the scraping which is going on.