15th June 2008: Who's made a mark this week

copyright Sarah Wimperis and Justin Clayton

It's good to see some artists who do daily paintings actually painting summer scenes and summer themes. I want to see blue skies on my monitor when the sky is blue outside and I want to see blue skies on my monitor when it's grey, cloudy and raining!

Seriously, I was surprised this week to see how few of the daily painters who paint landscapes were actually painting summer scenes. I find that right now I find myself automatically clicking on paintings which look summery.

Summer paintings with a theme are even better! The examples above were painted by members of the Daily Paintworks group - top left is a Summer Lane in Cornwall, top left, by Sarah Wimperis (The Red Shoes) while Justin Clayton (Daily Paintings) has been painting hay bales and blue skies.

Paintings are (from top left - clockwise)

• Summer Lane by Sarah Wimperis (oil on canvas, 30cm x 30cm)
• Hay Bales by Justin Clayton (oil on board, 6" x 6")
  
• Hay bales #2 by Justin Clayton (oil on board, 5" x 7")
• Blue Sky #6 by Justin Clayton (oil on board, 5" x 7") sold
  

Fellow members of Daily Paintworks, Karen Jurick (A Painting Today) and Carol Marine (Carol Marine's Painting A Day) have also been painting summer themes - swimmers, sunbathers, sunflowers and cherries!

Both have also developed pages about Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for their website. As popular daily painters they naturally get lots of e-mails and of course people want to ask the same questions again and again.

• See Karen's FAQs page on her website here.
• This is Carol's FAQs about daily painting
  
• plus Carol's answers to typical FAQS from buyers
  

Last summer Justin also created a Beach Paintings Blog for his painting trip down the Californian coastline from Nothern California to San Diego. He was following the same route I'd taken in July 2006 in my trip to the south western states of the USA when I finished the trip with a drive from San Francisco to San Diego. He had 10 days rather than my 4 days and got rather more painting done!

If you're taking a trip this year and intending to paint why not create a blog for it?

On to the links to sites I came across this week - not all of which were posted in the last 7 days!

• The Flying Pictures blog and its contributors continues to impress.
  
• Tracy Helgeson (Works by Tracy Helgeson) - has some small fans! See We're getting messy in 3rd grade and Pastel Landscapes. Plus some pretty important ones too - see I Got a Mention!!!!
• James Gurney (Gurney Journey) has a great blog post about Depth and Edges
• New blogs I came across this week include:
• Clara Lieu (Clara Lieu- a visual artist) who has recently been posting some lovely work which connects drawing and sculpting processes.
  
• Master Watercolors by paspartoeschilde in Antwerp, Belgium. It has a nice clear blogroll allowing you to access past posts about different artists who are masters at watercolour.
• the new blog for the monthly Virtual Sketch Date which has a new image for June. You need to comment on the post to be included and then have until Saturday June 21st to produce your sketch. You should then post your entry on your blog sometime on Saturday June 21st and Rose Welty (Rose's Art Lines)will produce a blog post (on the new blog) on Sunday the 22nd with links to everyone's entry.

• Thanks to Casey Klahn (The Colorist) for a post about the Art Blogs in Washington State and also highlighting Mariana's Old Paint - which is an old painting a day.
• Rose has also recently done a Book Review: Pencil Drawing by Ernest Watson
• The Guardian had a blog post about Modern Art is rubbish - and explaining why it sometimes gets thrown away.
  

Art blog posts about Colour

My colour project is now well underway with three posts last week

• What is Colour?
• Colour - a scientific perspective
• Book review: Multi Brand Color Chart for Pastels
• plus the publication of a new information site Colour science- systems and models - Resources for Artists
  

Other people who have been blogging about colour include:

• Sharon (Flat sound of wooden clogs) in Oregon is participating in the colour project and has been posting about the colour red. These are just the posts with content about colour - view her blog to see all the paintings she's been doing of red objects!
• So many reds...
• Modifying the intensity of tube colours
• Alizarin Crimson
• Using analogous colors to darken
• "Prof" Casey Klahn (The Colorist) has decided to specifically focus on intensity - and has written about Wheel Versus Real which addresses ground work in colour theory. Mind-bending stuff with some killer references at the end - I've not come across either of those before!
  
• Adam Cope (Dordogne Painting Days) has posted about Warm & Cool Colours in Painting
• Vivien Blackburn (Paintings, Prints and Stuff) has been trying out some colour field pastel work in playing with colour fields in pastel, harmonious and complimentary colours
• Ann Thompson Nemcosky (Bluebird Hill) has started to look at Color! and has been developing a colour wheel, value scales and intensity bars in coloured pencils.
  
• Rose Welty (Rose's ArtLines) has started to learn about colour wheels in Color! Color!
• and has been working out how to layer different types of coloured pencils.
  

Do please let me know if you've posted about colour and I've inadvertently left you out.

Plus I've also come across these blog posts about colour - as I limber up for more perspectives on colour next week!

• James Gurney (Gurney Journey) writes extremely well about colour. Today he writes about Mucha and Emotional Color and has previously written posts on
• The Green Problem
• Toning the Palette
• Color Zones of the Face
• Induced Color and about 25 other posts all about colour.
  
• Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) posted last month about History of the Color Wheel. Prior to that he's also posted about
  
• Sergei Bongart a famous Russian painter famed for his interest in colour.
• handprint : watercolors and watercolor painting
• Color Scheme Generator
• Nita Leland (Exploring Color and Creativity) has her new book now listed on Amazon for pre-ordering - Confident Color: An Artist's Guide To Harmony, Contrast And Unity (due to be published by North light Books in September 2008) - it looks jolly interesting! You can read her articles about colour on her website. Nita also has a couple of posts about mixing greens Mixing Greens Redux and Mixing with Green.
• Nita also recommended the Colour Lovers site and blog.
  
• Vicki Welsh (Field trips in Fiber) blogged about colour theory, colour wheels and Munsell last year
• Jerry Lebo (Sixty Minute Artist) posted about Using Color References back in April.

Artists

• This is a BBC video about Bob Dylan's paintings (with audio!) in a gallery exhibition which have been getting news coverage. Virtually all the paintings have been sold.
  
• Maggie Stiefvater (Greywaren Art) did an appreciation of our mutual friend Nicole Caufield (Nicole Caulfield's Art Journal) which for some reason I completely forgot include last week. May Artist Wrap-Up, May Artist: Nicole Caulfield

Art business and marketing

• Paula Pertile (Drawing a Fine Line) has been blogging about art fairs - and her revised opinion of where they feature in her marketing plans in Art Fairs, cows, creepy music
  
• Tina Mammoser (The Cycling Artist) has made some charts for pricing Flick o' paint: Pricing chart for makers
• For those looking for a newsletter e-mail system suitable for a large mailing list that needs to be segmented from time to time you might want to try checking out Purpleseven's Patron mail. I've absolutely no idea how much it costs and it's mainly used by those whose mailing lists run into the thousands - but if that's you, you might be interested. I noticed it because it's what's used by the National Portrait Gallery!
  

art competitions

• If you want advice about art competitions there are some free articles in the advice on art section of Sylvia White's website
  
• Pick Me! Pick Me! Tips on Getting Your Work Selected for Juried Shows
• How To Successfully Photograph Your Own Artwork
  - A Last Resort
  

Art exhibitions and open studios

• Last week saw the opening of two new exhibitions.
• In London - the BP Portrait Prize 2008 - exhibition opened to the public on Thursday. I'm back at the National Portrait Gallery tomorrow evening for the announcements as to who won which prize - and next week there will be portrait oriented posts tomorrow and Tuesday.
  
• In Los Angeles, a new exhibition Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science opened at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Center, (June 10—August 31, 2008) - see Maria Sibylla Merian - at the Getty Museum, Buckingham Palace and Kew Gardens. I've also p[ublished a new information site Maria Sibylla Merian - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers - but have not yet posted the book review I promised. I hope to do so very shortly.
  
• Next week the Cy Twombley exhibition Cycles and Seasons opens at Tate Modern at Bankside on Thursday 19th June. The exhibition closes on 14th September.
• I walked past Tate Modern on Wednesday and one of the street art images in Street Art - the man with the gun - is already coming off the walls of the building! Whether he lasts until August is a moot point..............
  

• Tracy Hall (Watercolour Artist Diary), who lives on the shores of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Isles, visited Wells in Somerset and managed to get to see the Hilliard Society of Miniaturists international exhibition of miniature paintings - and collected her award, the the Mary Scott Kestin Cup for Animals and Wildlife from President Rosalind Pierson (see right). Check out Hilliard Society Exhibition of Miniature Art to see more about the exhibition. You can also learn more about Miniature Art on Tracy's blog here and in the links on my information site - Miniature art - Resources for Artists
• The Greenwich Open Studios are this weekend and next - and that includes the studio of Tina Mammoser - The Cycling Artist. For more information visit Tina's website.
• I'm really looking forward tomorrow to meeting up with Robyn Sinclair of Have Dogs Will Travel - who's in London this week to see friends, visit art exhibitions and buy art books and supplies. I'll be digging out all my info about current exhibitions in London for her. Cosmo is very upset that she's not bringing the big boofhead with her so that they could compare grooming regimes!
• For anybody else coming to London - why not try reviewing these sites if you want to visit art museums, galleries and exhibitions
• Galleries is published on or by the first monday of the month. With many illustrations, it's Listings by Area, specialisation and Dealer (including indicating where galleries are on maps) with a monthly Diary of New Exhibitions by Date, Artist and Venue (web only). Galleries is available from listed galleries, a large number of the best and most central Hotels, Clubs, Restaurants etc. It is also available by on-line Subscription.
• The London Guide - Art Galleries

Art materials and supplies

• James Gurney (you know which blog by now!) has been running a poll about brands of oil paint - and the results are here in Paint Brand Poll Results,
• Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) has done a very useful post about Health hazards for artists
• Nina Johansson (ninajohansson.se) wrote about her New paintbox last month. It's a handmade Pocket box from the Paintbox Company in England.
• Tracy Hall (Watercolour Artist Diary) commented yesterday on the different surfaces she has tried for miniature paintings in Otters - watercolour painting in miniature namely Schoellershammer illustration board, Crescent Rag Board and Arches HP.
• Adiro has been sharing her new way of carrying pastels with the Soft Pastels Forum on Wet Canvas. It involves using the sort of webbing which is normally used to stop rugs moving on wooden floors.
• Felicity Grace (Felicity's Philosophies and other curiousities) has been showing us how she keeps her coloured pencils On my desk - it's poptastic! - and her very neat desk!

websites and blogging

• Many thanks to Sheona Hamilton Wright (Sheona Hamilton-Grant's Black on Grey on White) who gave this blog its second review on Blogged.
  

Blogged: Rated: 10 - Superb
Comment: The amount of well researched and explained information that Making a Mark provides us with is brilliant. One of the best most informative art blogs today!
Sheona H

• Jakob Neilsen wrote about how users read and hence how to write for the web in his Alertbox newsletter this week
  
• You can now have art themes on your Google i page
  
• I'm a bit more concerned that Google gets its act together over basics rather than fixing the icing on the cake - see yesterday's post Google and Feedburner providing poor service

and finally...........

For Apprentice fans everywhere - here's the complete 4th UK series on video......and in Lego for fans of The Apprehensive (also available - and very popular - on the BolegBros channel on YouTube)!