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.
- Tracy Helgeson has a post Cape Cod Redux (see image at the top) which really demonstrates just how powerful a body of work in a consistent style can look when presented in an exhibition at a gallery. Read the gallery's description of her landscapes inspired by upstate New York and Tracy's own comment on her solo exhibition (in the comments to her own blog post) to see just how powerful it can be for sales as well. See her work this month on Cape Cod at Tracy's Solo Exhibition, Salt Meadow Gallery East Sandwich. MA, July 1-30 2007 and other galleries as listed on her blog Works by Tracy Helgeson.
- Karen Jurick also has an interesting and thoughtful post The Opening in Ashville about her show which opened last Saturday on her blog A Painting Today. You can see her wonderful figurative paintings in her show on this link - 16 Patton Gallery - and count the red spots! Don't forget to click the link at the bottom to see more paintings which sold. See Karen's work at 16 Patton Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina July 5th thru August 1st. and other galleries as listed on her website.
- You can also read an appreciation of Karen Jurick by Neil Hollingsworth on his blog - Paintings in Oil. Do check out his blog archives and another very consistent body of work by Neil - this time as 'still life'
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- More on art.com and Artist Rising from from Dan at Empty Easel
- plus in his ongoing review of all websites selling art online Dan is also recommending that people sell somewhere other than ArtByUs.com and sets out in detail the metrics of the reasons for his advice
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):
- Landscape painting exercises with Suncage
- Suncage Painting at fox Hill (a painting by Pissaro)
- videos by suncage
....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?
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.
ReplyDeleteThanks 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...... ;)
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