27th July 2008 - Who's made a mark this week?

At some point today or tomorrow, the 300,000th visitor to this blog should arrive. I'd give whoever it is a prize if I could identify you but sadly that's not possible. Instead I'd like to say thank you to all those people who have visited my blog in the last two and half years and ask you all to participate with me in a mutual whoop for this blog making a mark on the blogging world! Whooooooooooooop!

I'd also like to shake you all by the hands as you're speeding up my stats! There's a very pronounced explonential curve to visitor numbers:

• the first 100,000 arrived June 2007 - and took 18 months
• the next 100,000 arrived by February 2008 - and took 9 months
• and this last 100,000 has taken just 6 months!!!

When I unpack the cumulative total and look at the data on unique visitors for each quarter since 1 January 2006, you can see that the apparently smooth line actually has a few ups and downs along the way.

There are some pronounced seasonal changes to blogging visitors and for anybody wondering where everybody has gone - we're in the middle of one of the holiday dips right now!

I think I've often commented on how I really only start to take a new blog seriously after it is 3 months old. Blogging on a regular basis and getting to 3 months old is a really major feat. I've never sat down to investigate the numbers but I think 70-80% (if not more fall by the wayside in those first 3 months) and quite a lot more only manage to post to their blogs on a very sporadic basis. It's a big change in life style and way of doing things and I was very definitely hooked in that first 3 months.

Getting to 300,000 visitors or 3 years old are a couple of other major benchmarks in a blogger's world. I reach 3 years of blogging in December this year but I'd like at this point to congratulate all of you who were already blogging before I turned up - and who are still blogging on a regular basis. You were my inspiration when I started and provided the impetus for me to keep going.

For everybody who'd like to know the secret of getting from 3 months old to 3 years old I've included a tip in my 'and finally......' section today.

Art Blogs

• Congrats to France Belleville on the 2nd birthday of Wagonized - see Two years. France's Doodles are like anybody else's full on drawings! Her talent for making very ordinary objects look interesting is phenomenal. I love her contribution to Andrea Joseph's Moly (#12) - Homage to Andrea Joseph - as part of an International Moleskine Exchange. Also take a peek at France's ladies on card (as in old cars for those unfamiliar with this blog) in her Etsy shop.
• Andrea Joseph (Andrea Joseph's sketchblog) started it with all this talk about drawing bugs now. I very much like Andrea's approach to telling people 7 unusual things about herself - which she started doing last year with this post - chasing dreams across the fields in the shadow of the sun. (Hands up Paul Weller fans!) See more of Andrea's wonderful drawings on Flickr.
  
• Vivienne Blackburn (Paintings, Prints and Stuff) has the dreaded first page in a new sketchbook experience this week
• Luann Udell (Luann Udell) last month had a blog post about Making Room for her art - otherwise known as needing to make room before you can start.
• Rose Welty (Rose's Art Lines) has been posting about the sketching she did on her break in "Sketching As a Language"
• Anne Hevener (The Pastel Journal Blog, editor of Pastel Journal) blogged about pastel artist Cindy House who enjoys Painting, By the Book - audio books that is. Does anybody else do this?
  
• Irene Brady (Nature Journaling) has been documenting her recent field trip earlier this month - sketching the wildlife, plants and flowers in Costa Rica. Start with Back from Costa Rica with journal! (23.07.08) and work towards today.
  
• I noticed in this week's letter from Robert Genn (Painters Key's - clickbacks) - The clock tower of Lucca had a new link to his daughter's new blog The Little Lined Notebook. Sara Genn creates art, plays music and takes photographs and is currently in Italy - as is her Dad - and has some great photos of Italy.
  

i haven't actually seen my dad in about six months. and so, like no time has passed, we pick up where we left off, fighting for air time on the only three subjects: art, painting, writing. once in a while we drift over to dogs and vegetables.
Sarah Genn

• Two sketching posts from me this week on Travels with a Sketchbook in....... I had dinner with my godchild Liz at Carluccio's - 12 West Smithfield and today I've posted a sketch of The Rother Valley from Great Dixter - done while eating lunch last Friday in the field which serves as the car park at Great Dixter. More about this fabulous garden tomorrow on my other blog

Carluccio's, 12 West Smithfield
12" x 16", coloured pencils in sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Artists

• This is an interview with Henry Moore's only child Mary Moore about The Moore legacy. It's an interesting comment on the problems of an artist becoming wealthy in their own lifetime. There will be a new exhibition in the Autumn of previously unseen work 'Henry Moore: Ideas for Sculpture', Hauser & Wirth, 15 Old Bond Street, London W1, 15 Oct-14 November. Meanwhile Moore in America can be seen at the The New York Botanical Garden until October - and images of the exhibition can be seen by clicking the link.
• Jonathan Jones (The Guardian - Jonathan Jones) wrote yesterday about the art collectors who are defying critics in 'I know what I like' - which includes comments on Jack Vettriano, Beryl Cook and Rolf Harris.
• The Washington Post has an interesting article last week about a Master Swindler - who produced Vermeeers
  

Art Business & Marketing

• I had a long post yesterday - Selling art - online art websites, tracking marketing data and a new survey for artists! - which is attracting some very interesting comments.
• ...and another long post earlier tin the week about Visual artists and Copyright in the Knowledge Economy which is about the recent Green Paper from the European Commission.
  
• Yesterday's contains an ANNOUNCEMENT about a survey on this blog - it's my very first! So far 14 people have found it in the side column - just below 'How do people rate this blog (the Blogged widget) and just above me 'About Me'. The question posed is What's the MAIN way you sell your art?
• Robert Genn (Painters Keys) has written recently about Dealer relations
  
• The elder Oakley children have decided to start marketing the work of their Mum - Julie Oakley (Julie's Pictures and A Family Portrait) - and have created a new blog The Oakley Gallery for the purpose. I gather this is going to reduce the need for student loans and add 'part-time art dealer' to their CVs! :) I wonder how many other children out there have an entrepreneurial position in relation to the artwork of their parent(s).
  
• Ed Terpening (Life Plein Air) has been trying a different approach on Facebook - see Facebook Fans

My new test involves Facebook’s “Fan” pages. Just as you can “friend” an individual, you can “fan” a brand or person you like
Ed Terpening

Art Competitions

• Emily Gravett has won the Kate Greenaway Medal, the UK's most prestigious award for illustration for the second time. Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears goes through a selection of its timid hero's anxieties, before he realises that even humans can be cowardy custard! The Guardian has a slideshow of images from the book. Check out her website too.
  
• Jonathan Jones (The Guardian - Jonathan Jones blog) has pledged to keep quiet! Well after my comment last week, he's now written about About The 2009 Turner prize and my vow of silence!

Art Education and Workshops

• The Sedona Centre in Sedona, Arizona has a faculty blog - A Painting A Day. Two artists featured on the blog are Michael Chesley Johnson - Michael Chesley Johnson - Rocks & Rockweed - and Carol Marine - Carol Marine - Codependent. To be honest, I think this blog needs a bit more thought and input if it is to be effective as a marketing vehicle. I find the title odd as it doesn't fit with the frequency of posting and I can't understand why they are pulling in blog posts from various teachers at the Centre (good as they are) - without links to their blogs in the posts(!). Why can't the faculty be blogging about their activities at the centre and what students are getting up to. What's your view?
• Meanwhile Carol Marine (Carol Marine's a Painting A Day) is doing workshops in canada - Family Matters" & Canada Workshop and More Canada workshop photos - is having trouble with her e-mail and her blog feed! Yet again, Carol demonstrates that a fast way of selling work is to do it front of your students in a workshop!
  
• Dan at Empty Easel has taken on some contributing writers and one of these has done an article about Producing a Community Art Event? Here’s A Last Minute Checklist

Art Exhibitions

• Shirley (Paper and Threads) has been to see JMW Turner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Shirley and I went to see a Turner exhibition at Tate Britain and then we had fun being Turner in the section of the Tate devoted to his drawing and painting processes (see Dining and sketching at the Tate Britain Restaurant) - so it was especially nice to see her sketches of Turners!
  
• If you want to see Picasso's Guernica in future, you'll have to go the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. The Guardian reported this week that Global touring takes its toll on Picasso picture. Much of the damage occurred when the mural was rolled up with each transfer.
• Impressionism and Scotland opened last Saturday and continues until 12th October at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Art Materials and Supplies

Swimming against the tide
8" x 10", coloured pencils on Saunders waterford HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

• My post about The art of economising - on art materials has turned out to be very popular - and lots of you made excellent suggestions to add on to my checklist of ways to spend less as people tighten their belts in the face of what now seems like an inevitable recession. I recommend checking the comments.
  
• Laura Frankstone (Laurelines) has been showing us her watercolour brush pens and the tests she's done in Watercolor brush pens for fun and profit
• For those Seeking Shade or in need of More Umbrella Advice get on over to Richard McKinley's Pastel Pointers Blog. The advice is relevant to all plein air painters whichever medium you work in.
• Casey Klahn (Pastel) has been making Big Stick Pastels - Home Made

Book reviews

• My post on Friday was about Alfred Heaton Cooper and The English Lakes and my review of the book which contains 75 paintings by Alfred Heaton Cooper. Several of use were diverted into a small rapture about the Heaton Cooper Art Gallery and shop in Grasmere! For those who love the Lakes do take a look at the prints of paintings by Alfred and his son William - links are in the post. Much better than photos or postcards!
  

Colour

• I posted about Symbolic Colour
• and Hopeeternal (Meanderings along the narrow way) highlighted a post written last year about The Language of Colour (from Carnevale - M R Lovric)
• while James Gurney (Gurney Journey) has posted about colour in Bleaching and Glare.

Websites & blogging

• I apologise for the haphazaed service this week to all of you who receive this blog each morning via a Feedburner email subscription. For some reason, Feedburner has chosen to drop all the Feedburner e-mail subscriptions from the total (top right) TWICE plus has sent new posts out late. I think Feedburner needs to buck its ideas up! The curse of google acquisition strikes again.............
  
• Can I recommend subscribing to your own blog using the subscription facilities you offer. That way you can spot when something goes wrong.
  

and finally.......

The secret of remaining a blogger once you've become a blogger is to remember you need to take a break every once in a while! If you don't the result is blogging burnout - not a pleasant sight or experience!

I try to schedule a week off every once in a while. However this summer I'm going to try something a little bit different. For the next 5 weeks (until the beginning of September) I'm officially putting myself on a "go slow" so I can do other things including getting out and about a bit more now that the weather has improved.

That means I'll still be blogging......but not so often. It'll be more like every other day or every 3 days. It's like having a fortnight's holiday - but spread out. However I suspect I might end up with a great big long list of draft posts............

Some of the posts might just refer you to a blog on my Travel Sketchbook blog where I'll be recording days out - starting today with another trip to Great Dixter which we did on Friday. I'm pleased to say that walking around gardens is just right for those of use who need to exercise dodgy feet.

The Rother Valley from Dixter
8" x 10", pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell