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Sunday, August 03, 2008

3rd August 2008 - Who's made a mark this week?

Today I've got much droning from high speed planes going on outside my window as the Red Bull Air Race gets underway along the River Thames in London.

A slightly quieter event, except of course when the crowds were cheering, was the recent Tour de France. Rob Ijbema, of Llandrindod Wells (Painting Wales Diary) has captured images from the race in a brand new blog called Painting La Tour
Fancy doing the 2008 Tour de France?
with nothing but a paint brush...
and telly ITV4, computer broadband history and NOS radio Tour de France....
Following the ups and downs of this magnificent and colorful spectacle round the whole of France.
Taking in the Alps and Pyrenees,the highs and lows, the whole way lined with millions of crazy spectators. Three weeks of nothing but pain and torture, why am I doing this to myself?
Have you ever created a blog for a specific event or a specific trip? My Travels with My sketchbook blog grew out of my two big trips to the USA and wanting to have one place where I could record them.

If you've done a big trip this summer why not create a blog for it?

Congraulations to.......
  • all the people who won awards on Friday night at the Colored Pencil Society of America's awards banquet. I've got a blog post about this and the 16th Annual International Exhibition on either Monday or Tuesday.
Congrats also to the various people who are celebrating blog birthdays and awards.
  • Karen Winters (The Creative Journey) Flint Canyon Trail, Autumn - Five Years of Blogging
  • Amy Ross (Nature Morph) has been blogging for a year - see her post random bits. Her work is fascinating and you can see more if on her website. You can also find it in galleries in Los Angeles, Boston, Washington and New York City.
  • Janie Pirie, a coloured pencil artist who won a silver gilt medal for her 8 coloured pencil works showing soft fruits at the RHS Show in June. Thanks to Bob and the UKCPS blog for the information - see More CP Success. I one hundred per cent endorse Art Societies using Blogs to to publicise the success of their members!)
  • Julie Oakley who got a Commended at her local art society show in St Albans.
Art blogs
Art business and marketing
  • Dan at Empty Easel needs feedback on how his new writers are doing. I sent him some feedback this week and if anybody else would like to do likewise, Dan suggests that you send any comments to him at EmptyEasel@gmail.com (or via his contact page).
  • What's the MAIN way you sell your art? So far 23 people have voted in the poll in the side column. Selling offline is way out in front........... If you've not yet voted, you might like to take a look at the options and select the one which best describes how you sell your work.
  • Linda Blondheim (Linda Blondheim Art Notes) has a post Listing prices, what to charge? about putting prices on artwork websites and setting prices for your art - plus a cautionary note about how galleries can make your sales dry up if they get the pricing wrong.
  • If you can't afford to collect Julian Merrow Smith's Postcards from Provence you might like to take a peek at some boxed notecards created from some of postcards which are now being published by Teneues the German/US publisher. There are two sets Flowers from Provence and Still Life from Provence. Apparently they're available in retail outlets and direct from TeNeues.com in the US/Canada or Uk/Ireland.
Art Demos
Art Exhibitions and galleries
  • Bankside Gallery has a new exhibition which opened on Friday - Summer in the Sity. This is a joint exhibition by the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers and will run until the end of the month.
Art materials and supplies
websites and blogging
  • A number of people with Blogger blogs had problems last week with their blogs and were unable to post because their blogs had been designated spam blogs. Edward B. Gordon (Edward B Gordon) in Berlin, Germany and Tracy Helgeson (Works by Tracy Helgeson) in New York State and Linda Blondheim (Linda Blondheim Art Notes) were three of the people caught by what has turned out to be a major !!!$%^&*!!! by Blogger. Such a timewaster!!! Here's the explanation , such as it is, on the Blogger Status site
Some blogs have been mistakenly marked as spam. Affected users are not able to post to their blog and received an email indicating Blogger classified their blog as spam. We are actively working to correct the issue.

Update: We have restored all blogs that were mistakenly marked as spam due to Friday's bug. If you are still unable to post to your blog, you can request a review by clicking Request Unlock Review on your Dashboard.
Blogger status
  • I'm loving the Blogger widget which lets you say what is the title of the most recent post on a blog - I'm opening up blogs in my blogroll a lot more often as a result!
  • Niff (Feathers of Hope) reports back from a visit to Moutain View (home of Google in California) and has some very interesting details about Feeding the Googleplex! ;)
  • Blogflux has set up a groups facility - and has one category for design which I fully expect will be taken over by the shopping blogs within a matter of milliseconds. No sign of a category for art and illustration as yet.
and finally......

As many readers know I love flowers and gardens and visit as many gardens as I can manage throughout the year. Posts about my visits now appear on my Travels with a Sketchbook blog.

For those who like gardening you might be interested to know that I've started to develop a series of information sites about the various gardens I've visited and last week I published the first two. You can read more about this development in The gardens of England.

Naturally, I started with two of my favourite gardens - Sissinghurst and Great Dixter.
It's interesting that both gardens were created by two people - Vita Sackville West and Christopher Lloyd - who wrote about gardens on a regular basis and who both produced exceptional planting schemes for colour. They truly knew how to 'paint' a garden.

I know I have a lot of gardeners amongst the people who read this blog - so I hope this provides an interesting diversion - and maybe a virtual visit - for your Sunday. Enjoy!

7 comments:

  1. ah the air race! That's what's been driving me nuts for days. (they must have been practicing Friday and Saturday) Since I'm right next to the river in Greenwich I knew there must be some event on.

    Glad you included Linda's blog about pricing this week - I 'shared' her post in my sharing widget too. From now on I'll be directing everyone to her fantastic advice.

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  2. Thanks for the mention, Katherine (small shreiks leave my mouth too whenever this happens!)- once again a bunch of fabulous links just when I need to get away from this chair and DO stuff...

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  3. I, too, ran afoul of the Blogger false spam pogrom. I wasn't as gracious as the other art bloggers I've seen who have suffered this.

    Kudos for those who are transferring to other sites, like Wordpress, such as Martha Marshall. My own direction will probably be to go to a pay site, as in all honesty Google may do as they wish with their free blogs.
    But, they're not making any friends with their silly behavior of locking up blogs on a whim. In the political world, I am reminded of Fascism!

    Google is a private enterprise, of course, but I think they pride themselves on egalitarian principles. Perhaps they need to go back to school on these things...

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  4. I'd never heard the word chuffed before, but I'm sure that's what I feel when I see my blog listed (with the VERY COOL new Blogger title listing) on your blog too! Actually I thought I made up that word to describe the sound my cat makes when she sees a squirrel or bird outside the window and makes a funny little "chuff-chuff-chuff" sound.

    I think your new poll should prove quite interesting and your research on collectors is a great idea. I was invited to participate in a two-person show at a local gallery and I agreed to do so, but since it means loosing 40% it's a mixed blessing. (I had my first official "studio visit" from the gallery owner who found me via a Google search for local artists in this area.

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  5. Very kind of you to mention me this week Katherine. I am honored.
    Love,
    Linda

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  6. Hi Katherine, thanks for mentioning me this week, I was wondering why on a Sunday, when I usually have between 4-12 hits on my blog, I suddenly had 23!!!

    We'll be enjoying your service for a LONG WHILE!

    Keep up the good work!

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  7. Katherine,
    Thank you again for being so kind and mentioning my blog.

    I thanked you in the wrong post (/rolling my eyes at myself).

    Also, please define chuff, if it's a cat thing, then my guy does it and it's not fun to be on the receiving end of that blast/wet sneeze.

    Cindy

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