21st December 2008 - Who's made a mark this week?

"An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the
Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers"
by Danny Gregory and friends

Danny Gregory's book An Illustrated Life has made it to the Amazon Significant Seven (Best of the Month in December) - which at this time of year is a really wonderful thing to happen and I guess is every author's dream come true!

Danny Gregory's An Illustrated Life is a visual delight of color and texture--a funky and frenetic "book about books people have made," perfect for chronic doodlers, journalers, and art lovers. Sharing vibrant excerpts from the notebooks of 50 illustrators, artists, and designers, each accompanied by an introduction by the artist, An Illustrated Life is a gorgeous, intimate exploration of the creative process.
Amazon - Best Books of December

Many congratulations to Danny and to all those artists and illustrators whose sketches and illustrations are included in the book and who are "all following the same path - to the back cover - one page at a time". You can:

• read more about some of the artists and illustrators - and hear podcasts of interviews - on An Illustrated Life by Danny Gregory.
• read about its launch on his blog in Catching Up and the First reviews
• watch a really fabulous video preview of the book with commentary by Danny on blip.tv

Let's hope we see lots of new people keeping sketch journals in 2009. Now you did all remember to include one on your "Christmas present to me" list didn't you?

Making A Mark Awards - the interactive slot

On Wednesday I summarised the Making A Mark Awards - The nominations to date are...... Don't forget!

• You've got until midnight tonight to make a nomination. Being the shortest day doesn't make a difference!
• The polls to vote for your favourite will be posted on Wednesday 24th December.
  

Art Blogs

• Robyn (Have Dogs Will Travel) has been taking printing lessons and produced a wonderful etching - and an explanation of how she did it in Venice Etching
  
• Leslie Herman (Leslie Herman) filled a sketchbook this last semester when nobody is watching and he's posted it on his own blog and on Sketchbook Month - they're very impressive drawings of lots of different people observed from life
  
• Nicole Caulfield (Nicole Caulfield Art Journal) has posted an answer on her blog to the very many generic ????? Questions ????? she gets from people who follow her work.
• Ronda is posting some of the drawings by Cindy Woods from Christmases past on Cindy's blog Learning Daily. So nice to see Annie again dressed up complete with her very own antlers!
  

Art Group Blogs

• Karin Jurick (Different Strokes from Different Folks) has kicked off the big three week holiday project Painting Us Different Folks - she's got 130 people signed up to painting portraits!
• Equine Artists is a digest of blogs written by artists who specialize in drawing, painting, photographing, and sculpting the horse. The site has a neat arrangement where the home page is the blog and then there are separate pages which provide, for example, links to all the artists' websites. Plus the labels indicate how many blog posts have been produced by each artist - the most prolific being Carrie Lewis
• Here are the results of Virtual Sketch Date in December - I'd still like to see something with more visuals (please!)
  

Art Business & Marketing

• Barney Davey (Art Print Issues) excellent post Warning Signs - Watch for Them - Don't Give Them is about the indicators that your client, customer or buyer may be experiencing "problems". His perspective is very much about of the outlets for art prints - however the lessons are transferable.
  

...if you are in business, you need to know what is going on. Being oblivious is not going to help you avoid getting burned by what is going on.

• Art Calendar has an article by Ligaya Figueras on Finding a Market for Large-Scale Art
• Marsha Robinett (The Extraordinary Pencil) made me giggle with an item she found which shows an innovative approach to making payments Does Your Art have Value???
• For those of you fancying a future career as a children's book illustrator here are Amazon's top 10 best picture books of 2008
• Nice to see Amanda Kavagnagh (Craftmomkeys) opening an Etsy Shop at last. I've been a fan of her very minimalist work for some time now. I'm not at all minimalist by nature and am in awe of those who are!
  

Art competitions

• On Monday, I wrote about the BP Portrait Award 2009 - Call for Entries - on the day that the the online submission forms became available.

Seraph by Celia Bennett
Oil on canvas on board, 380 x 300mm (15 x 11 3/4")
© the artist / Image courtesy of NPG Press Office

Art copyright

• In the context of the AWS controversy, on Tuesday I highlighted The difference between "copyright free" and "royalty free"
• Damien Hirst is becoming a complete joke. This is the artist who has practised extensive appropriation in the past when developing his own works but who now asserts he owns the copyright of the human skull according to a Jonathan Jones blog post in the Guardian. You can see the collage by the 16 year old which sparked the assertion in Arifa Akbar's article in The Independent Hirst demands share of artist's £65 copies.

Art Economy

• In Paris, the life models went on strike. Read Paris life models make nude protest to demand respect ... and better pay. Apparently artists, students and art teachers sat sketching them in support.

Art Education and workshops

• Sally Strand is offering two workshops early in 2009. This is a description of her workshop on the Colour of Light (which includes a link to an abridged version of my blog post The best ever workshop - pastel painting with Sally Strand) and this is the Events and Workshop Schedule. There are workshops in Austin, Gainesville and San Clemente. You can see some of her artwork in this Pastel Journal article about her.
• I neglected to mention back in November that Michael Chesley Johnson's book Backpacker Painting has been published - so I'll rectify that now. Especially as he's got a very nifty download option for anybody who wants a late Christmas present! I'll be interested to hear how it goes in terms of people wanting downloads versus paperbacks.
  

Art and photography exhibitions

• The New York Public Library has joined the existing institutions participating in The Commons on Flickr. The Commons is a project which aims to increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. A requirement for participation in the program that institutions may rightly claim "no known copyright restrictions" on the content they share. It has some amazing images - save it up for a lull in the Christmas festivities?
• However it's sad to see the way Yahoo 'fired' one of the key people responsible for "The Commons" as part of the Yahoo layoffs - read Not quite what I had in mind by George Oates who has been at Flickr since Day Zero. She also wrote this thoughtful piece about community Community: From Little Things, Big Things Grow on A List Apart in May this year. See also the comments below about the impact of the recession on webware companies - and the fact that you might be surprised which might also be in the firing line.

Art History

• Monet's green fields are no more according to this article in The Independent
  

Art supplies

• Stonehenge - two new colours in 10 yard rolls - not a cheap option, but if your work uses a lot of paper it's one worth considering!
  

Book Reviews

here’s a list of lists from various corners for art, design and photography books for 2008

• Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) has produced a post about Best Art Book Lists. I'm so glad somebody did this - I toyed with the idea and decided I didn't have the time to hunt down all the links!
  

Tips and techniques

• Michael Chesley Johnson (A Plein Air Painter's Blog) provides some excellent advice - which I'm happy to endorse - in Scouting Old Florida
• Gayle Mason has been providing tips about taking your own photographs of garden birds and using photoshop for reference photos on her blog Fur in the Paint
  
• Unable to Get Paint Tube Caps Back On? is the question asked and answerd by Marion Boddy Evans the Guide at About.com Painting
• Did you know you can Restrict Google Images to Clip Art, Line Drawings - only when you're searching!
• Who would ever have thought that Stephen Fry is a conplete techie and has devised a wonderful solution for the artist on the road who has a lot of techie paraphernalia and is forced to use hotel internet access. Check out his ethernet enabled mini wireless network as described in Gee, One Bold Storm coming up….!

Websites, webware and blogging

• This week I commented on Comment Spam - how to recognise it and what to do with it
• Silicon Valley is not immune from the credit crunch. It's a good idea to stay alert to the fact that internet and webware companies may well meet with difficulties in the current economic climate. This month Pownce was acquired by Six Apart and shut down. It was supposed to rival Twitter but was self funded and never found the finance or support for expansion. There was a very limited time slot to grab personal data. Back in October Rafe Needleman (CNET) identified 11 troubled Web companies: The next Kozmos? - which includes Twitter and MySpace. Note this is nothing to with whether the product is any good and everything to do with whether they have identified an effective business model which generates enough revenue! The big question mark is over Twitter which doesn't have a revenue model as yet and Skype which was acquired by eBay for an absolutely enormous sum.
  

Here, in no particular order, are 11 online services companies that could face a similar fate. Several of them are 2008 Webware 100 winners. Like I said, popularity isn't enough.

and finally.....

Presentation is all - I'm indebted to Stephen Fry and his extremely popular Twitter feed for showing me what Christmas looks like in Bloomingdale's windows (I think I finally twigged what Twitter might be about!)

Note:

Normal posting will resume some time in the New Year. I'm going to have a short break after all the posts relating to end of year reviews/awards/plans for next year - partly due to the need to have a break and partly to try and tackle all the stuff that hasn't been done while I've been ill. (Yes, you're right - thatis a contradiction - but I'm sure you know what I mean!)

Over the next ten days or so I shall be posting:

• 22nd December - A Review of Blogging Art in 2008
  
• 23rd December - A Review of Art on the Internet in 2008
  
• 24th December - Shortlists and polls for (1) Best Artwork and (2) Best Portrait by a Female Artist (poll opens)
  
• 29th December - Making A Mark Awards (Part 1)
  
• 30th December - Making A Mark Awards (Part 2) - including the results for Best Artwork and Best Portrait by a Female Artist
• 31st December - My Personal Review of 2008
• 1st January - My Plan for 2009

I hope you'll be able to look in - and join in - while enjoying your own seasonal festivities.