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Sunday, May 18, 2008

18th May 2008 - Who's made a mark this week?

There have been quite a few people drawing a cat this week! Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) and Rose Welty (Rose's Art Lines) have banded together to participate in a virtual sketch date each week.

The idea is to have fun but also to see how each person responds to working from the same photograph. The idea has taken off and a small group of people now participate each week - including me this week (see right).

Tripod
pencil (fine and 4B)
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

This week everybody is working from a photograph supplied by Jeanette of her cat Tripod (he's got three legs!). The participants are - as at 15th May 2008 - Jeanette, Rose, Jeanne, Stacy, Belinda, Jennifer, Gayle, Teresa, Katherine and Paulette.

I don't normally draw at all from other people's photos - but I like Tripod and liked this week's photo! It's also really interesting to examine options for how you can translate photo to sketch and then to see how your interpretation compares to those of other people.

Tripod
Graphite, graphite dust and indian ink

You can see mine above and see other completed sketches in the following posts:
Now for the rest of 'who's made a mark this week' - and it's a long one!

Flowers in art

With the Chelsea Flower Show coming up this week, I'm keeping an eye on the 5 day weather forecast and am in the middle of a spate of posts about flowers, painting flowers and botanical art. So read on for a few more related links that I found for 'who's made a mark this week'
Art Blogs
  • First - very many thanks to Jana Bouc (Jana's Journal and Sketch Blog) for telling me that Making A Mark had been listed as a 'Hot Blog' by the June edition of The Artist's Magazine - I can't wait for my copy to arrive so I can see for myself! However I've just discovered I'd inadvertently let my subscription lapse. I say inadvertent - it's mainly because I ignore all their subscription reminders because they usually start about a fortnight after I renew and then carry on for a year - so I just stop reading them!!! At the moment I'm having to content myself with being listed on the June 2008 links page for that edition. If anybody would like to scan and send me a jpeg or pdf of the mention I'd be most grateful!
  • Please all go and take a look at the brand new Printsy blog of the group of Printmakers who sell on Etsy. It includes a great interview with a printmaker called Fustian. You can also see their work in their new Printsy Flickr group
  • Martha (Trumpetvine Travels) has been in New York and has posted her sketches in New York Sketchbook, 2008, Part One (I recognise the back views of Shirley sketching!) and New York Sketchbook, 2008, Part Two (You've got to go look at the sketch of the Koons Balloon Dog!) You can see a photo of Shirley and Martha in New York in Every Day in May-3 on Shirley's blog Paper and Threads and also see Shirley's sketches too.
  • I also love Shirley's new series of drawings of "My Homes" - what a great idea! I went to see the second home I lived in just recently to see if it was still the same - but it wasn't - it looked much better than before!
  • Lindsay Non-Linear Arts has done a 'best of' for her waterways project Waterways Project: One Year Later
  • Jonathan Jones (amongst others) commented on the death of Robert Rauschenberg on the Guardian Art Blog.
  • more posts from blogs in "tips and techniques" and other sections below.
Art business and marketing
  • I keep trying to find time to write about The Orphan Works Act of 2008 and it looks like Charlie over at Lines and Colors has been stuck as well. Although it's not as comprehensive as he would have liked neverthless he gets to the guts of the issue which I'm repeating below - as it's pretty much my take on the whole thing. Follow up the links in this post and make representations.

I’m not opposed to the original stated intention of the bills, to provide for the use by museums, libraries and other cultural institutions of works for which the copyright is no longer being actively defended; but the bills as they are worded don’t put the necessary definitions in place to restrict the provision to those kind of institutions and non-profit use, and go way beyond that into the creation of a bureaucratic nightmare for visual artists, who will now have to devote unreasonable time and resources to defending their art against opportunists, image thieves and copyright sharks.

The bills as they stand basically undermine many of the copyright protections we now enjoy and blithely take for granted. They need to be changed to protect those of us who don’t have the resources of Warner Brothers or Disney to constantly monitor use of our work with armies of lawyers.
Charlie Parker - Lines and Colors - The Orphan Works Act of 2008

Art competitions and prizewinners
Art exhibitions
  • The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra has the unique distinction of having one of the best and worst website introductions to its exhibition Turner to Monet - The Triumph of the Landscape that I've ever seen.
    • First the worst - there is the introduction to the public - which is in Flash and, if it doesn't crash your browser as it did mine (twice), has lots of images of female with swirling hair and soulful brown eyes floating around an art gallery. In my opinion it looks very like an advert for a chocolate bar. What do you think?
    • Compare this (if you ever get to see it) with the more educational site. This has an excellent introduction to the exhibition, a very good video and it's a very nice touch to actually have all works in the exhibition also available to see as a digital display. A further plus is that you can enlarge up to a decent size plus can 'select by artist'. The contrast between the two 'views' of the exhibition is simply staggering! Any other comments?
  • Hilliard Society InternationalMiniature Art Exhibition - This is one of the few major UK miniature shows and a great chance to see some of the finest work in the field from Britain and abroad. It opens to the public on Saturday May 31st at the Town Hall at Wells in Somerset and then runs through the first week of June.
  • MuseumsonUs has changed and now provides free admission to a very large number of museums and art galleries in the USA on the first weekend of every month if you have a Bank of America card. Check the website and click for details of which museums are participating amd what are the dates of the first weekends.
Art Supplies
  • You may have missed my review - with photographs of the art supply heaven that is Green and Stone in the Kings road, Chelsea - see Art shops in London - Green & Stone. Judging by the comments I've received it seems like it has many international fans!
Tips and techniques
Websites and blogging
and finally..........

I love typography is a website for all typography addicts (that'll be me!). It has the rather difficult font game - which is very difficult to avoid if you are an addict and I can imagine it would be easy to get hooked! However it's excellent for a quick 5 minutes time out. I got 21 out of 34 first time round - but I will do much, much better very soon!

11 comments:

  1. Eek! I just burnt my pancakes, while looking at all the information that you pass on. :)
    Great Tripod, he does make a good subject.

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  2. PS. I try to average 10 posts a month.

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  3. I'm only half way though all this wonderful artistic 'loot' but I had to say your Tripod is a winner. Beautiful drawing.

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  4. Katherine, lovely job on Tripod. I love how you can feel the presence of light on Tripod in it...very Monet. Light is very often a feature of your work, nicely done.

    The virtual sketch date is usually once a month, not once a week. I don't think that any of us could do it more often than that. It has been really fun. It's wonderful to see how can be gleaned about style and mark-making, that's my favorite part. I imagine that we'll do it again in June.

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  5. Katherine, great job on Tripod! It looks like he is daring me to try to take that paper away. I think I'll resist the dare!

    It's a good thing I didn't know until yesterday that so many regular animal drawers had joined the sketch date or I might have been intimidated. By the time I found out I was too far into my version to worry about it. :)

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  6. Very lovely soft looking sketch :)

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  7. Thanks for the double mention!

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  8. I'm sure I commented here, but perhaps it got lost in the ether. Katherine, you've done a beautiful drawing of Tripod. All this attention will go to his head and he'll be demanding the more expensive tuna next!

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  9. Just call me Our Lady of the Concertina ;D. I'm so happy to be out of my blue period and catching up with you. Your beautiful drawing of Tripod really conveys his intelligence and spirit. I do love seeing your work.

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  10. Another great blog Katerine. Just letting know I have posted my virtual sketch date pic too :)

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  11. Thanks for all the comments

    Plus thanks for the correction Rose - I'm such a newbie at your virtual sketch dates! ;) Do let me know when you announce the next one.

    Plus many thanks to Jeanette and Rose for organising the sketch date. I'll try and make sure I've got a link to the next one posted in my weekly post.

    "Our Lady of the Concertina" - I must remember that one! Glad to have you back Laura.

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