Sunday, July 15, 2007

15th July: Who's made a mark this week?

In future I'm going to request images from bloggers for this post when I see a powerful image on a blog during the previous week. This week I'm starting with Tracy Helgeson and her photograph of her solo Exhibition on Cape Cod this month. See below for why I chose this particular image.

Children's summer holidays loom large right now and this week's round-up includes some links for parents in the UK who are in search of ideas for activities to keep them occupied.

Art - creating a body of work and your own show

One of the things galleries look for when assessing artists' work is whether an artist has a consistent style. Subject matter is possibly less important but they do want to know how they can best describe your subjects and style to potential customers - in brief.
Artists - and living and painting in France
  • Many of you will know Julian Merrow Smith and his very popular Postcard from Provence blog. However you may not be aware that his musician wife Ruth Phillips also has an excellent blog Meanwhile Here in France - where you can read about their recipe for painting a grey-green door. Ruth also has a great 'eye' and takes excellent photos which I always enjoy looking at on her blog and as a collection on Flickr. These recently included the artist at work 'en plein air' (scroll down) and here's the result Cliff Path above Cassis. Julian's comment at the end of comments on his blog post makes interesting reading!
  • Another artist living in France - in Brittany - is Sarah Wimperis. She's just experienced a blog transformation and a birthday all in one week. Over the next year - from July 12th 2007 until July 11th 2008 - she will be painting 100 paintings, oils and watercolours and where possible she will be showing the workings, sketches, scribbles, ink blots and ramblings that go towards making the paintings. My guess is that there might be a few videos as well. Readers voted on the five subject categories for her paintings - with 20 paintings in each category. These are: landscapes; people at work; cafes & bars; buildings and seascapes.
Art competitions
  • The deadline for the Jack Richeson Landscapes and Exteriors competition is 21st August 2007. Submission is via digital image on CD Rom. Details (pdf file) are available here.
  • People who particularly enjoy cartoons might want to take a gander at the cartoon awards). Nominations for Political Cartoonist; Joke Cartoonist; Cartoon Strip; Caricaturist and Pocket Cartoonist need to be with the Cartoon Museum by 25th September 2007
Art for kids and bigger 'kids'
  • For parents wanting activities for their kids during the loooooooooong summer holidays,
    • The Cartoon Museum has an exhibition of Heath Robinson’s Helpful Solutions 5 July – 7 October 2007.
Heath Robinson’s Helpful Solutions is the largest exhibition of William Heath Robinson’s (1872-1944) humorous drawings for 15 years. It includes over 100 original drawings and sketches by the man who is one of the few artists whose name has entered the Oxford English Dictionary to signify ‘any absurdly ingenious and impracticable device’
    • The Cartoon Museum also have a very good programme of exhibitions (see exhibition below) together plus cartoon classes and events for would-be cartoonists.
    • www.show.me.uk is the 24 Hour Museum’s zone for kids and has online museum and gallery interactives for children aged 4 to 11. Designed for children aged 4 to 11, or KS1 and 2 in the English National Curriculum, the site has lots of online interactive resources produced by museums and galleries. There are sections for teachers and parents, weekly news stories, ideas and tips on extending children’s interest in their heritage, an interactive UK museums map for kids and lots more.
    • ....and for the younger artist - there's the young pavement artists competition
Art marketing
Art videos

Last year I featured the activities of Jon Hall and his Limner's Contract together with his art instruction in 12 quick lessons in plein air painting. Jon is now kitted out for video and has more to interest those landscape painters (and those who teach landscape painting):
I've also finally got round to opening a YouTube account. You can read more about my Travels with a Sketchbook Channel and my plans for videos here. Don't miss the travel sketchbook videos I've included from Enrique Flores - they're stunning sketchbooks and he sets a standard to aspire too. An interview with Enrique will be coming soon....

....and finally

If you scroll to the bottom of the page you'll find a new item - a list of five of the most popular posts on this blog. I'm going to start keeping an eye on my most popular posts and will update this listing from time to time. Some of you who are new readers won't have seen all of them - and this seems a neat way to highlight what has proved to be very interesting to others.

Why not try it on your own blog?

2 comments:

  1. These sunday reviews are a good read. I have been expanding my bookmarks as a result. I also must confess to loving a good snoop in other people's sketch books/process work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Lorna - I'm now trying to work out how to keep brekkies warm and the tea and coffee on the go for people while they settle down for a Sunday morning read...... ;)

    ReplyDelete

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