28th October 2007: Who's made a mark this week?

Draped Reclining Woman

A limited edition bronze by Henry Moore
(#7 on the sculpture trail of works by Henry Moore at Kew Gardens)

Congratulations to......

• Tom Christopher PSA of Iowa who according to the Pastel Talk Forum of Wet Canvas has apparently 'unofficially' won 4th place in the landscape section of the Pastel 100. Check out his very impressive pastel artwork here. Formal announcement of decisions will be notified to prizewinners by 31 January 2008 and all the pieces will be featured in the April edition of Pastel Journal. You can see more of his stunning pastel portrayals of the Iowa Greenbelt here. I do love artists who can do really convincing trees in all seasons.
  

The Big Drawing Book Review

My reviews of drawing books got disrupted this week however you can find more reviews of drawing books below. My latest acquisition (which will be reviewed in due course) is "The Tao of Sketching" - it's a complete guide to Chinese sketching techniques!

• Dave in Oxford/Mothsailor (Dave's Blog) - Drawing from Line to Life by Mike Sibley
• Alison Kent/Pica - (Feathers of Hope) - The Creative License by Danny Gregory (5 pencils)

Artists

• You can get a complete index to both the artists and subjects covered by various editions of the Pastel Journal in the last year if you visit their website. The index is available as a pdf document. I hope this really useful document gets developed into an interactive and online version at some stage.
  

Art Blogs

Bartlett Pear (sold)
6" x 6", oil on panel
copyright Abbey Ryan

• The number of artists still participating in the daily painting movement seem to have dropped however, there's still both space and market share available to those with talent who are keen to pick up the baton (or maybe that should be 'brush'?).
• Abbey Ryan tells me she is a long-time reader of this blog and that she has just started a new Daily Painting Blog called Ryan Studio. I took a peek at her work and although it's not yet developed a consistent Ryan perspective or motif for these new small works (in contrast to the strong direction evident in her studio work) it looks very promising to me and seems to be attracting interest on e-bay. You can see Abbey's larger studio work here.
• Many of you will remember me talking about how Notan influenced Georgia O'Keefe's paintings. Linda Blondheim has been exploring the concept in her plein air painting of late and you can see the results on her Linda Blondheim Art Notes blog.
• Vivien Blackburn (Painting Prints and Stuff) is creating collage cards of beaches for an art and craft fair using fabric and paint. I really like the 'night beach'.

Art business and marketing

• Ed Terpening (Life Plein Air) is trying out new ways of marketing artwork. He explains how to feature your virtual studio sale in advertising online using Facebook Flyers. I think I can see how that might work extremely well for some people.
• Karin Jurick (A Painting Today) is warning people about a scam artist who is asking people if they'd like to accept a Second Chance Offer. Do what Karin has done here and alert people if you think anything is bogus or untoward.

Art - education and development

• Alyson Stanfield (ArtBizBlog) has an excellent post about 5 ways to be a better artist - in summary: Practice / Experiment / Listen to the critics / Read / Look at a lot of art. I totally endorse everything she says and wish I'd written that post!

Art exhibitions

• Alyson Stanfield also has a very useful and practical post with recommendations about what to do about labels for an art exhibition - Labels for your art installation
• Renaissance Siena - Art for a City opened at the National Gallery on Wednesday. Jonathan Jones of the Guardian is not enthusiastic. You can take the Siena Trail starting here.
• I'd forgotten to mention the opening of Pop Art Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery earlier in the month. The website looks rather good.

Large Upright Internal/External Form
Bronze by Henry Moore
(#2 0n the sculpture trail at Kew Gardens)

• The Henry Moore exhibition at Kew Gardens is outstanding and also has an excellent website. It makes me wonder why the Gardens haven't been used more for exhibitions of sculpture. I wonder if the work of someone like Andy Goldsworthy would fit into a more cultivated environment? I also saw something at Kew Gardens of great interest to botanical artists which I'll be writing about soon.
  

Art groups - Facebook

• Ed Terpening (Life Plein Air) - who's into social media transactions - has set up a Plein Air Painters Group on Facebook. It looks interesting - and I've joined. In order to access the group you need to register with Facebook.
• Which means I'm now on Facebook! Actually I had already dipped a toe in Facebook but I hadn't really explored it at all - but I now have a reason to go there and it's lovely to see so many other familiar faces who've all apparently had the same idea! I'm still sorting my way through how it all works - and got mightily distracted doing my map! I'm beginning to include upcoming events. However I think I'm going to be keeping the 'friends' bit just for people who I 'know' through interaction in forums/blogs/groups on Google and Yahoo (plus my other offline 'face to face' contacts) for the time being.
  

Art in Miniature

• Following my visit to and post about the exhibition of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters,Sculpters and Gravers, at the mall Galleries in London, Gayle Mason (Fur in the Paint) has been inspired to start a miniature on ivorine. You can see progress to date and links to where she gets her supplies here. I went to see the exhibition again on Wednesday and it's still a story of record sales and a very successful exhibition. Nicole Caulfield (Art Journal) is also busy preparing some miniature art for an exhibition. Given the interest shown in miniature art I'm hoping to write more about it soon.
  

Art supplies

• I had an opportunity to try an Optivisor at the UKCPS AGM when Ann Massey brought hers along to show us. This is an optical aid which is invaluable for people doing very fine detail and/or miniature art. However it looks a bit odd when on - see a demonstratation here. There are a variety of suppliers. Gayle Mason (see above) has just got one and I'm hoping she's going to be commenting on its use on her blog very soon!
  
• I came across the Natural Pigments website on the Botanical Art Yahoo Group. I don't know anything about it and have never ordered from them but it certainly looks a very interesting website for those interested in making paint from pigments or artwork involving encaustic, casein, fresco, tempera, gilding, oils or watercolour. Plus it's the first website that I've seen with a Durer Grid for a long time! However - a warning - the navigation around the website has some scope for improvement in terms of the visibility of tabs and menus!

Finally, for anybody who missed the earlier message, I'd very much like to thank all those who offered their support earlier in the week which helped get me through a very worrying time. I'm going to be preoccupied visiting with my sister who's on a flying visit and 'the patient' for the next few days - so I'll see you all later in the week.