2nd November 2008 - who's made a mark this week?

Urban Sketchers 1st November 2008
Drawings (header and post) by Pete Scully

This week I'm featuring sketching in the 'top spot'.

• Urban Sketchers started on 1st November and you can read all about it in Friday's post - Urban Sketchers officially starts tomorrow. I recommend reading the Meet the correspondent posts for the huge variety of perspectives on why sketch/how to sketch and where to sketch when in a city. It had a positive torrent of posts yesterday (as might be expected) and is currently playing havoc with my Followers screen in Blogger - squeezing out everybody else. If it doesn't calm down soon(!) it's going to have to come out of Followers and only be read in my normal feedreader.
• Last weekend was the 20th International Sketchcrawl and here are a few more people from around the world who contributed posts on this subject
  
  • Pete Scully (Pete Scully) in Davis, California has three posts - see sketchcrawl 20 (part 1), sketchcrawl 20 (part 2) and sketchcrawl 20 (part 3)
  • Gary Amaro (Gary Amaro Art) has some delightful sketches of dogs in his sketchcrawl 20: the mission /noe valley, in San Francisco
  • Jackson Dryden was in Dolores Park, San Francisco for Sketchcrawl 20
    
  • Nina Johansson (Nina Johansson ) took part in Sketchcrawl no 20 in Sweden
    
  • Jonathan Tiong did Sketchcrawl #20 in Vancouver British Columbia
  • Miguel Herranz (free[k]hand)did his 20 SketchCrawl Bologna
  • Anita Davies (Anita Davies) did her Sketchcrawl 20 - in Ely in the UK
    
  • Jeanne Grant (Jeanne Grant) was sketching at the Bakersfield Country Club in California for Sketchcrawl #20. Congratulations on your anniversary Jeanne - love the big hair! :)
    

Art Blogs

• the Flying Pictures project is coming to an end and books have started to return their owners - take a peek at some of them. I think we now need an exhibition!
  
• Robyn Sinclair (Have Dogs, Will Travel ) has been having a Printmaking Adventure in Tuscany - and we're now getting to see the results

Artists

• Andy Goldsworthy has been building spires in the woods near San Francisco - see this NY times article Work Stands Out Before It Blends In

Art Business and marketing

• Art Buddies Stacy Rowan and Rose Welty have both acquired new blogs specifically designed for sales. Stacy's new blog At the Moment includes a very sensible early post about FAQs relating to sales which she can then reference in her sidebar. Rose's new blog is Rose Welty - art for sale. Rose has also reviewed her experience of setting up her new website and sales blog in So You Want To Sell Your Artwork? (Part 1)
• I really like to keep a look out for transferable skills and tips. After all it doesn't have to be invented by an artist to be useful to an artist! Running the art business is one of the main areas where we can all benefit from tips from others. This is Working From Home: The Readers Respond by Our Gentle Readers which I found on A List Apart - it has lots and lots of useful tips.
• Art Calendar has a Tax Tips for Artists: Start Planning Now - Web Exclusive by Ted Knutson based on an interview with Steven Goldglit and Richard Shebairo, two New York City certified public accountants who specialize in artists.
• Paula Pertile (Drawing a Fine Line) reports that Decorative Arts Magazine is going 'bye bye'.
  

More on the art economy and the recession:

• Reuters reported on Friday that Sotheby's reduces art price guarantees. An art market guarantee is when an auction houses offers a guarantee to the vendors of a painting that they will get a certain price for their artwork at auction - irrespective of the price achieved at auction. In effect the auction house either finds a gallery/dealer in advance at that price or buys the piece in and adds it to 'stock' (effectively becoming a dealer in the same way as a gallery is). They offer the guarantee to get the business and the associated prestige of selling particular pieces. Auction Houses then reduce prices when they want to reduce their exposure to risk even on prestigious pieces!
• ...and yesterday, Reuters reported that the Art world dreading declines at upcoming key NY sales
• ...while the New York Times reported that anxiety is the dominant mood in Tapped Out? by Carol Vogel on Wednesday including a report that the wife of the former CEO of the Lehman Brothers (a credit crunch casualty) is going to max out on the guarantee of $20 million for 16 postwar works on paper already provided by Christies.
  

.......there are two schools of thought in the art world -- that "there is still great wealth out there and it will find its way to art, which is truly precious" or that the market's growth "stems from these excesses in the financial system."
Baird Ryan, managing director of Art Capital Group - quoted by Reuters

• Edward Winkleman (edward_ hussein* winkleman) - who is a dealer - has a commentary on dealer prices in galleries in Established Prices Never Die, They Are Just Discounted Away...Or Are They?
• The Art Newspaper has an article which suggests Speculation in young artists is over, and the smaller dealers will be hurt the most

What is the silver lining in all this cloudiness? Perhaps a return to the importance of museums, critics and alternative spaces for validation and the introduction of new art.

• Jonathan Jones found a great rant by Damien Hirst which he's posted in The art market according to Damien Hirst. Meanwhile The Art Newspaper had an article titled In and out of love with Damien Hirst

Art Collectors

• Roger Wilson of AffordableArt101.com (a fine art print dealer), and writing for Empty Easel, has 'penned' a useful article which is A Short Guide to Buying Original Art Prints: 10 Things You Ought to Know
  

Art Exhibitions

• Alyson B Stanfield (ArtBiz Blog ) has some thoughts about Ethics and juried exhibitions. It's clear from the comments that there's a fair degree of frustration (and in some cases anger) with the way some shows are run - and the people who run them. See if you agree. I have had a post in mind on a similar topic for some time and would be interested to know what people think.
• On Monday I reviewed two recent exhibitions at the Bankside Gallery - by the Royal watercolour Society and the Society of Wood Engravers - in Bankside Gallery - Watercolour and Wood Engravers
• The Mall Galleries is currently hosting the Annual Exhibition of the The Royal Institute of Oil Painters. (due to finish next Sunday). This is the virtual version - and I'm hoping to get to see it this week. It includes two paintings by Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco ()
  It includes two paintings by Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco (Ilaria's News)

Art History

• Raphael masterpiece returns after 10 years see a slideshow here
• The exhibition of Frick's Vermeers Reunited has been extended until 23rd November at The Frick Collection in New York
  

Art Groups

• On Tuesday I wrote about the scope and sophistication of Ning network software to help with online communication in Artists, Art Societies, Art Groups and Ning. This is way beyond Google or Yahoo Groups folks - check out the features in my post - and it's free!
• Vivien, Lindsay and I are greatly enjoying our exploration of Ning and the only problem I've hit so far is that it only likes IE7 for uploading photos to the gallery for the slideshows!
  

Book reviews

• I reviewed The little book of drawing on Thursday

Recession proof - tips

This is a new section for passing on tips to help us all address the recession. Add your own tips in the comments for this post or contact me by e-mail and I'll feature them next week.

• Lifehacker yesterday came up with their Top 10 Online Freebies and Deals - some of which are undoubtedly relevant to readers of this blog.
  

• Shipping (distribution) and advertising are two areas expected to offer major discounts if pressed. I was listening to a Radio 4 programme yesterday which suggested we shouldn't be paying the quoted cost price for anything at the moment where there is
• either a choice of suppliers
• and/or you are buying large quantities or paying significant sums.

Tips and techniques - art process

• The Making A Mark Poll on working in a series came to an end on Friday and yesterday I published the results in MaM Poll: working in a series - final results
• The results and main conclusions to be drawn from my monthly MaM polls can now be found on The Making A Mark Poll - Resources for Artists
• Each week there is an EmptyEasel Painting Tutorial . Here's links to a couple:
• Alternation in Art: How to Add Interest to Your Paintings Using Alternating Elements
• 6 Time-tested Ways to Create Visual Paths of Interest in Your Paintings
• The BBC has developed a website about art. It provides - amongst other things - the following:
  

• tips and tools
• top ten art tips
• an article which is 'all about art'
• and an art dictionary

Chelsea Green Tomatoes
10" x 8", coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Websites, blogging and software

• On Wednesday I wrote about The top 10 items for the sidebar of an artist's blog
• My gmail got smileys this week! See Gmail With Smileys
• Blogoscoped highlighted the fact that you can now have a template for your gmail responses - see Gmail Labs Canned Responses
• I discovered Remember the Milk this week - and its blog - and and read this interview Remember the Milk's Co-Founder on the Future of Task Management with Emily Boyd, one of its Australian founders, on Lifehacker (who are fans)

......and finally

I had to have a photo taken for my introduction on Urban Sketchers Meet the correspondents: LONDON > Katherine Tyrrell.

Easier said than done! You can read the story here in Meet a correspondent for Urban Sketchers

Photo of a fusspot with a cold
by "he who must not be bored while I sketch
and is never taking another photograph - ever!!!"