16th March 2008: Who's made a mark this week?

Pastel Society 109th Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries
5-16 March 2008

I went to the Pastel Society Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries on Friday. You can see some images of the exhibition above - taken without a flash so that you can actually 'see' the images. There will be a bit of a pastel theme to this week as I'll be writing more about the exhibition and the artists and work I liked plus I'll also be covering the Pastel 100 competition / edition of the Pastel Journal which finally arrived last week.

Incidentally, I received an e-mail this week from Julie Douglas (Art at the Park) who has drawing and painting classes in her studio in Killanena in County Clare, Ireland. She told me her husband had a piece hanging in the Pastel Society exhibition as a direct result of the entry submission alert on this blog! Looking at the catalogue, I'm guessing it's "Jack Russells at work, Galway" - which I seem to remember as being a somewhat 'ironic' title. ;). There are more reminders about entry submissions below.

I've had another 'below par' week as the nasty bug has come back for Round Two - this time complete with temperature. It makes for very creative dreaming.........

Art Blogs

• Cindy Haase (Color On) in Colorado had a great post in February which I missed - Does the Creative Muse Visit You? Let's Play! - it provides a very useful prompt. Cindy works in a realistic style, has produced some great work - check out this page on her website. and does demonstrations on her weblog about using Neocolor 11 as an underpainting for works in coloured pencil. She's also the Membership Director of the Colored Pencil Society of America and an art instructor. For those who'd like to get a bit of a closer look at how she works, Cindy is doing a workshop at April 26, 2008 at South Union Gallery in Lakewood, CO. Cindy is very versatile as well as very talented and also has a fibre art blog In Stitches!
• Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) in Newfoundland had an interesting post - with useful links - about Older Artists (I do believe there are enough of us to make a 50+ club if we wanted to!)
  
• Neil Nelson (Hours and Days) in Nothumberland discusses Realism and Expression plus dither in relation to fine art drawings and how to avoid over-painting a subject
• I spotted two new botanical art blogs this week. These are:
• Art Plantae Today which is the companion blog to ArtPlantae.com created by Tania Merien in response to a need to have better access to botanical resources.
  
• Blogs are an excellent way for any art society to publicise its work and attract new members. BAGSC News is the blog of the Botanical Artists Guild of Southern California. It contains society news and details about members' botanical art exhibitions in the area (check out Sally Jacobs work) and workshops. I especially like the fact that it contains a 'How to blog' section - it sets and excellent standard for all such blogs. I'm now taking this as my new baseline standard for a new Making A Mark Award for 2008 for the best Art Society blog. I'll make an announcement about this after reading any comments you may have about this idea.
  

The BAGSC Blog replaces our quarterly newsletter. The advantage of our blog is that it allows us to really be a community — our members can comment and discuss articles; contribute stories and reviews; and let other members know about “calls for entries”, galleries, openings, and learning opportunities........To our members who aren’t connected to cyberspace: No worries. We’ll periodically print out the blog and mail it to you.

BAGSC News - how to blog

Art education and workshop

• This is the weekend of the Painting Workshop by Carol Marine and Karin Jurick, March 14th-16th, '08, Round Rock (north of Austin), TX - which of course filled up as soon as it was announced!
  
• See photos here and here
  
• You've still got time to book for Daily Painting workshops by Carol Marine only in various locations in the USA - check her blog Carol Marine's Painting A Day or the workshops page of her website for details
• I liked the quote on Karin Jurick's blog A Painting Today - in the context of the prospect of a lot of brand new experiences "I've never been to Austin, never taught, let alone took a workshop"

"I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do."
Georgia O'Keeffe

• Following on from the debate about painting from photos last week, an extract from one of my posts CPSA and UKCPS: originality in concept, design and execution was featured - with comments - in the Monday Motivator spot on About.com:Painting last week by Guide Marion Boddy-Evans.

Monday Motivator: Originality Isn't Painting from Photos

"... if you copy from a photograph taken by somebody else, then you are using their concept.

• You haven't had the idea, the photographer did (unless they did it under your direction).
• It's not what you saw, it's what they saw.
• It's not your view of the world, it's their view of the world (unless they did it under your direction)

^{-- Artist Katherine Tyrrell, Originality in Concept, Design and Execution}

• I know I'm always surprised at the number of people who draw from photos. Marion followed this up during the week with a couple of other posts for people who use photos to paint from or as references while also reminding us about Artist Myth No.2: It Should be Easy

• Why Not to Make a Painting from a Single Photo
• Using Photos Creatively for Painting
• Maggie Stiefvater (Greywaren) swears she got strep throat from reading my blog! Anyway, she is also 'below par' and has only been able to post the first of a series of posts she planned for this week on working from photos -
  
• see Maggie on Photographic References, Part I
• [late update - she posted just after I published!] Maggie on Photographic References, Part II

Art Supplies

• I posted this week about CPSA Lightfastness Test Result Workbook - Version 5 published. I've now completed my book and am about to start filling my gaps! Having the colours arranged in colour groups makes it so much easier to see where you lack certain colours across the different brands.
  
• I've checked out websites which allow you to order individual Derwent Coloursoft pencils online and have currently narrowed it down to a couple.
• Artifolk - buy three Derwent coloursoft pencils @£1.45 each and get one free = £1.09 each (no postage for orders over £40)
  
• Jacksons Art - Individual Derwent Coloursoft pencils @ £1.20 each (inc VAT) and free UK delivery for all orders over £39. Click the name of the colour of the pencil to get an individual page for each pencil which cites the lightfast rating.
• Julie Douglas reckons that Art and Craft in County Clare is the best art shop in the West of Ireland
  

Exhibitions

• Current exhibitions:
• Today is the last day of the Pastel Society Annual Exhibition.
  
• The Royal Watercolour Society Spring Exhibition opened on Friday and runs until Sunday 13th April 2008 at the Bankside Gallery
• Over at the Mall Galleries, the 196th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours opens on Thursday 20th March and continues until Saturday 5 April.
  
• I've long admired the work of Scottish painter Alison Watt. She has a new exhibition Phantom at the National Gallery to mark the end of her two year stint as their Associate Artist. The exhibition runs until 22 June 2008 in the Sunley Room Admission free.

• Online exhibitions:

• I enjoy the online photography exhibitions which various newspapers run in their online editions. Here's some recent ones on the Guardian site:
• The world in a different light (Mar 12 2008) Award-winning photographer David Noton has spent the past 25 years capturing the world's most beautiful places, from Patagonia to the Isle of Skye
• Valencia's daily feast (Mar 13 2008) Yesterday was the start of Las Fallas, Valencia's incendiary annual festival, but every day is a feast day at the recently refurbished Mercado Central, one of world's finest indoor markets
• Pier culture (Mar 13 2008) Includes archive images of British piers. The 55 surviving historic piers have been in decline for decades but now stand on the cusp of being revived as enclaves of luxury homes and hotels
• Times Online has an online exhibition of the sketches of 'war artist' Matthew Cook - Sketching the War of Atonement (it has an intriguing dateline!) More importantly, the National War Museum has an exhibition Getting Tough - Matthew Cook's images of Iraq and Afhganistan - sketched during a real war and showing real soldiers, this time as 'war artist' to the Times.
  

• Here's a few reminders about juried exhibition submissions:
• Receiving days for the Royal Society of British Artists are 28th and 29th March. The exhibition runs from 15th - 25th May 2008 with a Private View on 14th May. Please note the website is badly out of date and the correct submission details are on the Mall Galleries website under Information for Artists.
  
• CPSA Annual Exhibition 2008 - closing date for digital submission is 31st March. You can dind further details in CPSA - call for entries for 2008 annual international exhibition in Seattle
• Receiving days for the Society of Women Artists are 11 and 12 April 2008. The Exhibition runs from 29th May to 8th June 2008; Private View: Wednesday 28th May.

Websites and blogging

• It seems to be Feedburner's turn seems to have a bad week this week. I subscribe to my own blogs to keep an eye on any problems with e-mail delivery and I've had e-mails delivered a lot later than usual plus today all the e-mail subscribers have been dropped from the subscriber numbers (top of the right hand column). Now this is getting spooky - because last week I told people how to set up an e-mail subscription feed with feedburner and yesterday I posted a chart of the number of subscribers as the image for the post!!!
  
• Saturday on this blog seems to be reverting to Techie Saturday. For those who've not spotted it yet, yesterday's post was about Exploring Web Analytics #1. It provided definitions for a number of terms which are used by statistical software for blogs and websites - they're worth getting your head round if you use stats on your blog.
  
• I'm looking for suggestions of useful posts which I can link to in future posts which will begin to lift the lid as I explore Google Analytics! I've spotted some but I know you all know more than me - so suggestions are most welcome!
  

and finally......

While avoiding the rush hour on Friday evening I spent some time in the Strand branch of Waterstones and came across a book - which I ummed and aahed (Ho Hum!) about buying mainly because of the price. But it's stuck in my head so I'm now conducting an online survey for the best price!

The book is Japanese prints by Charlotte van Rappard-Boon, Willem van Gulik, Keiko van Bremen-Ito. It's a very comprehensive catalogue of the almost 500 Japanese woodcuts in the Van Gogh Museum were mostly collected by Vincent and Theo van Gogh. It's stunning book - now I need to find a stunning price!

Posts in my Japanese project this week were:

• The concepts and characteristics of ukiyo-e
• The elements of ukiyo-e
• Principles of design and composition and ukiyo-e