17th February 2008: Who's made a mark this week?

Images of wateriness in Laurelines
copyright Laura Frankstone

I'm trying something a bit different with this week's post - it's got three major topics and a few other items as well.

Topic #1: A Blog with a Theme

Laura (Laurelines) has had a number of us with furrowed brows trying to guess what she had chosen for her theme for her blog this year. She's had some really interesting projects and approaches to blogging in the past so I was intrigued - and started guessing along with other fans of her blog. Back at the beginning of january, she posed her challenge for us to guess it here and last Sunday gave us the solution here.

And the answer...? Well her home and garden in the USA are currently suffering from a drought and the theme for her artwork and blog this year is "In search of water". The images from her sketchbooks at the top of the post are, from top left in clockwise order:

• The Fountain at the Alamo
• A fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris
  
• The Delacroix Fountain in the Luxemboug Gardens in Paris
• and finally, calligraphic shrimps

Laura has some very interesting trips planned for this year in pursuit of her year of 'aqua mirabilis' - including Hawaii this week. It's certainly going to be fascinating to see how much she finds for her theme of watery places and all things associated with water - and maybe also with the lack of it. What's also fascinating are the stories which people are leaving as comments on her blog about their own experiences of water and rain - and the lack of it. It looks like there's lots of people suffering from water shortages this year. I think that probably explains why we in the UK had an exceptionally wet summer in 2007 - it all came to us instead.

It's certainly a very green theme for this year - or as I suggested to Laura, maybe that's green tinted with a touch of aqua.

Topic #2: Art Class - Life Drawing

There seem to be an awful lot more people doing life drawing class this year - so to encourage others, here are some links to (mainly very recent) posts about life and/or figure drawing classes and the work produced. That means drawings of people with no clothes on - so you don't need to look if you don't want to.

• Starting with the person who was the very first blogger I watched bring back his drawings from life class - and that's the inestimable Wally (Crackskull Bob) who, of course, has all his life classes tagged as nekkid people. He's also one of the few people who does his life drawing with a tablet. That's one of those computery tablets not one of those small white tablets. Note that it is not a requirement that all those attending life class get down on their hands and knees!
  
• Will Stevens has a very nice blog about a life drawing class in Bristol (Sarah - please note!) called The Human Form, a Life Drawing Blog. It's a little unusual insofar as he posts about the work of individual artists in the class, has round-ups of work done each term and also has a wonderfully informative post about one of the iconic figures of life drawing and huge influence on English art education - Sir William Coldstream.
  
• Simon Collins lives in Sydney Australia. His blog Simon Collins - Life Drawing/Painting mainly features his life drawings/paintings from his weekly group. Scroll down to some more of his nice loose style using colour. You can also other life drawings on his website.
  
• Casey Toussaint (Rue Manuel Bis - life drawing) has joined a life drawing co-op
  
• life drawing
• life drawing - different model - different style
• Dee Farnsworth (Dee Farnsworth) - has lots of great drawings in her blog's life drawing category
• Felicity Grace (Felicity's Philosophies and Other Curiosities and Sketches by Fiz)- has a number of posts about life drawing. She's recently been experimenting with using coloured pencils in life class
  
• Eliane Dukevot lives in Canada but is Dutch and belongs to Clogwork (a collective of Dutch and Belgian artists) - she also goes to life drawing class.
• Dan Szilagyi (Hungry Hungarian's blog) is a graduate from Vancouver film school's classical animation program and has some interesting life drawings from two classes back to back in this post More life drawings
  
• The Turnbull Group met every Thursday evening for a life class in Wellington New Zealand between April -August 2007.
• Alessandra Sorrentino seems to only have one page on her blog (Aleina - Life Drawings) but it does demonstrate very nicely what can be done with pastel and shaping with value rather than contour.
  
• and this is a bit of a variation on life drawing - Ariana Page Russell as featured on Kirsty Hall's blog, Up All Night Again, - ouch!
  

I did life drawing for years before opting for drawing a head each week. Maggie has suggested that I do a blog post for all those apprehensive about trying life class so I'll be doing that in this next week - and hope that lots of those already attending will also chip in with comments 'to encourage the others'.

Topic #3: Pastels

Here's some highlights of blog posts concerned with pastels

• The Pastel Journal (Pastel Journal Blog) have us a sneak preview Honoring the Honourables of some of the artists who will be featured in their April edition which will focus on the Pastel 100.
  
• Richard McKinley (Pastel Pointers Blog) advised on ways of protecting unframed pastels
• Casey Klahn has got two new projects (as well as the best snow pictures so far this year on any blog!)
  
• his Wolf Kahn project on The Colorist (I can feel a small contribution from this side of the globe might find its way into the ether) and
• Tricks, Pastel Tips & Bits over on his Pastels blog where I gather he's going to focus a bit more in future on communicating some basic pastel techniques.
  

Art Blogs

• James Gurney (Gurney Journey)
  
• recently had a great post - Stroke Module - about the size of strokes used in a picture and the variation of detail. Nice one! Those interested in composition should also check out all his other posts about composition as they offer excellent advice.
  
• he's also been doing some interesting posts about colour. I very much enjoyed Colour Wheel Masking Part 1 and The Shapes of Color Schemes (and am definitely a supporter of this perspective) and his third post from Mask to Palette. However I have to confess he lost me with Colour Wheel Masking update. I think I maybe need to re-read..........
  
• I can't remember whether I've posted Drawn and Quarterly's Blog before. If I have here it is again! For those interested in comic book art it's worth taking a longer look around the Drawn and Quarterly website. It's one of the most well presented and well organised and up to date sites of this sort.
  
• My post at the end of January about What increases your artistic productivity? proved very popular and even made it onto StumbleUpon - thanks to Chris Bolmeier / Christerical (who's also one of Casey's fans) - your comments are much appreciated! :) I'll be doing an update soon.

Art Exhibitions

• Paul Dorrell (Paul Dorrell's Blog) has a regular slot of Friday Tips. Two have recently concerned showing your work
  
• first there were tips about where to show your work if you're not yet in a gallery
• and last Friday saw some tips about portfolios and presentation folders
• and last january he had one on working with galleries on framing and other expenses
  

Art Materials and Supplies

• Nina Johansson (NinaJohansson.sehad a great post back in january (which I missed and have only just discovered) about how to fold a single sketchbook fron one piece of paper. Fold a simple sketchbook
• And to start where we began, Laura (Laurelines) has been showing us her "calligraphic shrimps" in a concertina sketchbook. I've now included a link to the suppliers Seawhite in my information site Papers and Support: Resources for Artists
  

and finally.....

Last week's "and finally....." 'bombed' so I won't be trying another one of those in a hurry! ;)

However what I will be doing next week is starting to recount, on my Travels with a Sketchbook in..... blog a trip I made nearly 11 years ago to New South Wales in Australia. I didn't sketch then as much as I do now but I still have the sketchbook from the trip plus all my notes. Any fans of Australia out there?

And finally.....here's wishing a Very Happy 3rd Birthday to Julian Merrow Smith's Postcard from Provence which started on 16th February 2005. There are very few who have had as much success as Julian has had with daily paintings. It's still a blog which has much to teach people about why some people are good at producing a daily painting which sells.