1st July 2007: Who's made a mark this week

Cactus in jade and crimson
8" x 10", coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I think this the last in my 'pun' images for this weekly round-up. However I'm still needing help to identify my cacti and succulents - I now have a gallery ten images of cacti and succulents which didn't exist at the beginning of this month!

So what did I notice this week?

Artists and art blogs

• Found - a new blog by Duane Keiser. Here's the rules for how to participate in 'Found'. Duane was credited in USA Today and the New York Times with starting the internationally recognized “A Painting a Day” movement in 2004 with his oldest blog "A Painting a Day".
  

Art shows and competitions

• Thanks to Gord Leverton for finding this link - Art Show Perspectives - a lot of advice on the Berman Graphics site about submitting your work as digital images to art shows and competitions and information about how digital juries can work. Check the credentials. and have a good look round the site - there's lots of solid information about photographing artwork.

Art supplies

• If you're in the USA you may be wondering where to get hold of clear bags to hold artwork. I saw clearbags being recommended last week and was impressed when I viewed their website. I'm still looking for the UK equivalent!
  

Art videos

• Blogger in Draft looks like it's providing some useful information and add-ons to help with support for enclosure links for podcasts. Plus it's now possible to include a poll - all we need now is the question and the answers! Support for video uploads is on its way......
  

Art Education: Websites, Books, Workshops, Tips and Techniques

• Linda Blondheim is a professional artist who lives in Florida and is a seasoned plein air painter. She provides a painter's tip every time she posts on her Landscapes of the South blog. Linda isn't currently using the Blogger labels function to categorise her tips but dive into the archives anywhere and you're bound to find something useful.
  
• I was asked a question about value and went looking for websites which provides good graphic explanations and came across the discourse about value and colour on Handprint's excellent website - and guide to watercolour painting
  
• this is his discussion of tonal value - it gets VERY technical, but take a deep breath and read very slowly! If you get stuck, just skip that bit and keep reading......
  
• and this is his colour wheel of colours matched to a value scale.
• He's got a printer friendly (Adobe Acrobat PDF) version of the artist's value wheel (size 220K).
  

Coloured Pencils

• The eight FMP show has been published. This is an online exhibition of works in coloured pencils by subscribers to Ann Kullberg's online magazine for coloured pencil artists "From My Perspective". As ever, the show contains a high proportion of portraits of both people and animals. Pat Averill judged the show and it's expecially interesting to be able to see an explanation of the reasons why she chose each one of the pieces that won a prize or honourable mention.
  

Drawing

• Drawing Connections - a blog by Amy Liedtke. This is a relatively new blog (since April 2007) but there is evidence of lots of very interesting links to drawing-related websites and some good quality posts to date. Examples of some of her recent posts include:
  
• Types of Drawing: making marks for good reason identifies 8 categories or reasons for drawing
• 30 Drawing Reference Books for Artists, Designers and Anyone who wants to learn how to draw
• Experimental Drawing Techniques: Marker, pen and colored pencil on illustration board

Exhibitions

• Two exhibitions from the National Galleries of Scotland - both concerned with drawing.
• Drawing to an End - 5th May to 29th July 2007. This display looks at studies or initial ideas for paintings, prints and sculptures, many relating directly to paintings that hang in the Gallery. The works in this display reveal a great deal about artists' working practices and methods, exploring the importance of drawing in their creative process.
  
• Picasso on Paper 14th July to 23rd September 2007. This promises to be very interesting exhibition as it will be showing more than one hundred and twenty prints and drawings executed over the course of his life. Some of these have never been seen before in the United Kingdom.

Apologies to all those who got a copy of me saving the headings and a couple of potential posts for next week's draft of my weekly round-up. As I complete one week, I copy headings across and start to set up the following week's post so I can just drop links in as I come across them during the week (this blog post virtually writes itself!). I inadvertently published the one for next week - and it survived for about two minutes before I deleted it!