11th November 2007: Who's making a mark this week?

Lest we forget - Horseguards on Horseguards

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Lest we forget - it's not very often that the 11th day of the 11th month comes around on a Sunday. Today is both Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday in the Commonwealth.

Changing the Guard
Horseguards Parade, 10.11.07.
(with London Eye is background)
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The start and end of the minute's silence are marked by the firing of a gun by the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery at Horse Guards Parade.

This was the scene yesterday on Horseguards of the changing of the guard when I passed while walking from one exhibition at the Mall Galleries to another at the Horticultural Halls.

Art bequest

• I've not featured one of these before, but it's not everyday that somebody leaves a bequest of paintings valued at £100million - take a look at the Simon Sainsbury bequest to the nation

Art Blogs

• Michael Chesley Johnson (A Plein Air Painter's Blog) has written about Lunch with Albert Handell - a great read! See more about a workshop with Albert Handell and Richard Schmid in the workshops section below.
  
• Anna at see.be.draw has a wonderful piece about Art as Practice and some recommendations about how to establish that practice
  
• The Guardian Art Blog had a piece about artistic politicians
  
• take a look at Petra Voegtle's paintings on silk in Images and Imagination. She's also got an interesting series of posts about painting from photos.
• Jamie Grossman (Hudson Valley Painter) has a nice demonstration of an acrylic painting - Path through the Open Land Foundation, North Salem NY - on her blog
• Tina Mammoser has highlighted Etsy Treasuries - what a nice idea!
  
• there's more about art bloggers below as well........
  

Art Exhibitions

• Four galleries - Digging Pitt (Pittsburgh PA), Digging Pitt Too, Agni Gallery (New York, NY) and Panza Gallery (Millvale, PA) - have joined together to host The Blogger Show between November and January. This is showcasing the artwork and writing of 34 artists including, from my blogroll, Lisa Call (New Work and Inspirations), Tracey Hegelsen (Works by Tracey Hegelsen) and Elizabeth Perry (woolgathering). You can see a preview of the work here, read the The Blogger Show Blog (including a post about the opening reception) and read Edward Winkleman's rave review here. And click the links to each of the galleries to be able to see the names of the artists and the links to their blogs. Lots of viewing to do there! Overall I think this is a superb idea and I hope other galleries will see the wisdom of doing likewise!
  

The exhibits showcase the work of over thirty artists whose common interest is in clarifying artistic discourse through their blogs. All of the exhibits will take place between November 3, 2007 and January 12, 2008. Free and open to the public.

Gayle Mason and feline friends demonstrating
at the UKCPS stand at Art Materials Live, NEC

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

• Gayle Mason (Fur in the Paint) has posted on her blog about being a demonstrator for UKCPS at the Art Materials Live exhibition on Thursday and Friday last week. She's now written about it on her blog and I can certainly endorse what Gayle had to say about the amount of people talking to her about her work - her cats stopped people in their tracks! I'm sure there will be a lot of interest too in the workshops and DVDs which she is now thinking about as a result of the show.
  
• Congrats to the UKCPS people who staffed the two stands - about CP and working with CP. They were extremely well organised with three demonstrators and other support for a lot of visitors asking about and trying out coloured pencils. The support through provision of art materials and discount vouchers from the various manufacturers was also very impressive.
• I'll be blogging later in the week about two exhibitions I visited yesterday - the Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the exhibition of botanical art at the November London Flower Show by the Royal Horticultural Society. One of the posts will be about two of the gold medal winning artists - one from the UK and one from the USA.
  

Art videos

I haven't posted any videos for a bit. Here's a couple about:

• the Guardian Online has a section on the Turner Prize 2007 including a video The Turner Prize. You can also read Wikipedia here for commentary about the history of The Turner Prize and visit the Official Tate Britain / Turner Prize website and the site devoted to this year's nominees. I saw the Mark Wallinger piece at Tate Britain earlier in the year - staged just outside the 'exclusion zone'. The winner will be announced in December.
  
• a video about Maira Kalman who was mentioned in last week's 'Who's Made A Mark' - talking about her life and work and New Yorker covers. She's really very funny! You need to subscribe to Tedtalks to see it (right hand of screen)
  

Art supplies

• Ali/Pica (Feathers of Hope) has found a place where you can have your sketchbook custom-made.
• Casey Klahn (Pastel) has posted his Diana Townsend Pastels Review (and has also highlighted some other pastel artists who blog!)
• Plus a small plug for my latest squidoo lens on Art Equipment - Resources for Artists. - still a work in progress, but with enough links to now be worth publishing. This looks at everything else, besides the media and the paper, which we need to work in the studio or plein air. Do let me know if there is something you think ought to feature in it.
  

Art workshops

• Bruce Newman has a really nice overview of the week long painting workshop by Albert Handell and Richard Schmid in Putney, Vermont last month on his website. Use the days of the week at the bottom to navigate the week. You can read more about the workshop on his thread in the Plein Air Forum of Wet Canvas. Sounds like a great time was had by all.
  

The Big Drawing Book Review - Book reviews

• I've been distracted by art materials pencil sharpeners this week bit will be returning to book reviewing this week. In the meantime Kirsty Hall has written a brilliant book review about The Drawing Book by Sarah Simblet.
  

Blogging

• The Feedburner Blog post 'Saturday Subscriber Count Drop?' about the major hiccup in subscriber numbers listed in the Feedburner chicklet last Sunday is rather funny. The fault apparently lies with Google Feedfetcher. No more partying for Google - ever! ;) The relief being expressed in the comments is quite funny as well - it looks like it gave some bloggers quite a scare! However the problem has continued this week - my subscriber numbers have been all over the place - so maybe the partying continues?
  
• Matt Cutts (Matt Cutts - Gadgets, Google and SEO) - the man at Google who masterminds the fight against link spam - highlighted a link widget - Linkify - a bookmarklet created by Laurence Gonsalves (xenomachina)
  
• Google joined the corporate super league - it's now one of the top five companies in the USA and joined up with My Space and Bebo to try and trounce Facebook. Which has only served to make me think maybe Facebook has got something........... ;)
  
• Darren Rowse at Problogger - highlighted the power of commenting on blogs
  
• Deb (tenforty) blogged about a basic blogging etiquette of dos and donts

Next Saturday, Gayle and I will be back at the NEC - this time for her stand displaying artwork at the Supreme Cat Show! We look forward to meeting with anybody who reads this blog and who is also going.