7th December 2009 - Who's made a mark this week?

This week saw the launch of Watermarks. I'm involved in contributing to this blog as one of a new and small community of artists who are all interested in creating art out of water.

We all started off having known some of the other people involved for some time. However none of us knew every other member well so we all knew we'd be learning about people.

What I'm finding absolutely fascinated is hearing all the different perspectives on water and approaches to drawing or painting it. That and the fact that even though I think I know somebody well and have been following their work for some time I'm finding I can still learn something knew about them and their work.

It's been a fascinating insight to why people do what they do and how they do it. It's the sort of narrative which I love reading about on other people's blogs

This week we've had the first six introductions to the nine artists in this new community - and rather a lot of slideshows and videos!

• Welcome to Watermarks!
  
• Introducing Vivien Blackburn
  
• Introducing Lindsay Olson
  
• Introducing Katherine Tyrrell
  
• Introducing Laura Frankstone
  
• Introducing Gesa Helms
  
• Introducing Jeanette Jobson

The images are by all the different artists introduced to date. Top block (clockwise) is Vivien Blackburn, Lindsay Olson, Jeanette Jobson and Gesa Helms. Top left is mine and bottom right (opposite the links) is by Laura Frankston.

More next week!

Art Blogs

• compare Richard Bell's normal natural journal drawings of Yorkshire in Wild West Yorkshire with those made on his recent day trip to London.
• The Chicago Tribune had an interesting story about Naked ambition: Inside the curious world of nude modeling for artists which I came across courtesy of Marion Boddy Evans
• Brian Kliwer (Rockland Maine) is doing a project 100 paintings in 100 days. He's very much taking a miniaturist approach to his landscapes which are typically 4" x 5". Thanks to Alyson B Stanfield for highlighting this project
  
• Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life ) has identified a great little project "52 for 25"
• ...and for those of you who like your Sunday Papers you might like to take a look at Sunday Papers at Somerset House and Anyone for skating? (which was done on the same visit to Somerset House) - both on my other blog (which has now got its own icon in the sidebar!)

Art Group Blogs

• Different Strokes by Different Folk has changed to being a 2-week project - and I hear the next one is REALLY interesting!
  
• The Virtual Sketch Date for December is being held early to avoid conflict with the holidays. Get Dates for December 2008 (and the reference is already up)
  

Art Business & Marketing

• Karin Jurick's pep talk this week on Different Strokes by Different Folks is all about the advantages of auctions and what you can get out of them. This is in addition to previous ones which have been about preparing images for a blog/website/auction and Karin's Power Tools. For all of them you need to scroll past the images to get to the text.
  
• Tina Mammoser (The Cycling Artist) has an excellent 4 step plan to stress free (or as close as you'll get) art events
  
• Yesterday I posted about MaM Poll RESULTS: How much art have you sold via your blog or website? There are inevitably problems in doing a poll of this sort and some of these have been highlighted in the comments. Let me know if you think you know a way to improve on this poll.
  
• The Illustrators Partnership has been gearing up for any last chance attempt to get the Orphan Works bill through Congress - see Orphan Works - A Lame Duck Countdown - recommended read
• Last Sunday Alyson B Stanfield celebrated the 4th anniversary of Art Biz Blog
  
• On the topic of "Thank You Notes" from the artist to the purchaser we have
• Alyson B Stanfield Don't forget to thank these people and
  
• Robert Genn (Painters' Keys) Thank you notes

Art economy

• The Guardian reported on Recession reaches Hirst's studios. There's a word for people who operate like Damien Hirst.
  

On Thursday, up to 17 of the 22 people who make the pills for Hirst's drug cabinet series were told their contracts were not being renewed, according to two sources close to Science Ltd, Hirst's main art-producing company. Another three who make his butterfly paintings were also told they were surplus to requirements.

It is thought that amounts to approximately half of the London-based artists who work for Hirst. They are paid about £19,000 a year, sources said. In June 2007, Lullaby Spring, a cabinet filled with hand-painted pills, sold for £9.65m.
Recession reaches Hirst's studios.

• An announcement was made last week that Lehman Brothers gets approval to sell $8m art collection. It made me wonder how many more collections will need to be broken up and sold before the recession comes to an end and what that will mean for art prices at the high end of the market. My inclination is to predict the slide will continue.............
• There are varying reports from Miami about Art Basel Miami. I read all reports keeping in mind who is writing and what level of investment do they have in promoting particular messages. The message from the Guardian was Don't mention the Depression as they noted that there was talk of recession everywhere.
  

Art Competitions

• CPSA Annual International Exhibition 2009 - Call for Entries - all those interested in coloured pencils and wanting to enter the Annual Exhibition of the Coloured Pencil Society of America should read my post from Wednesday.
• The American Watercolor Society gold medal controversy meanders on (and on!) but has had recently yet more newspaper coverage in Canada - here and here. Interestingly in one of these the artist appears to make a statement which suggests that the artist acknowledges she breached the rules. However newspapers don't always get it right - so who knows? Spare a thought for Mark Mehaffey, the man who (if the reports are correct) is having to wait an awfully long time to hear whether he should now receive both the gold medal and the cash prize. I can't help but think that this matter needs to be sorted out prior to the announcement of the notice of who has been accepted for the 2009 exhibition and who has won awards! (Slides had to be in by November and the notice of who has been selected is due out in January with awards announced in February).
  

Art Exhibitions

• Jonathan Jones (Art and design: Art | guardian.co.uk) thinks that Tate Britain is the best art museum in London
• I covered two exhibitions this week:
  

  • New English Art Club - Annual Open Exhibition 2008... at the Mall Galleries
    
  • The Mini Picture Show at the Bankside Gallery (this one will keep changing all the time)
    
• The National Portrait Gallery of Australia has opened in a new home situated on in Canberra, with the High Court of Australia and the National Gallery of Australia either side. It has some 400 portraits of people who have helpd to shape Australia. This is what the Sydney Morning Herald has to say - seeing double in a tailor made space
  

the concept for the new gallery is grounded in the experience of looking at portraiture, and in its emphasis on human scale the building favours intimacy and connection in lieu of reverence and the monumental
NPGA website

• Animated is the first online exhibition

Tips and techniques

• Belinda del Pesco (Belinda del Pesco Fine Art) shows us all how to do a glue collagraph
  

websites and blogging

• Did we all get problems with Feedburner playing up this week? I know I did and I've seen references to other people also having problems with their blogs taking forever to load or being unable to access Feedburner. Just so you know you weren't on your own.....
• ....and then I find out that Feedburner is in the process of migrating publishers to Google Accounts. It says that our feeds will continue to work normally - but I think we may all have a different perspective on that. Keep an eye on the Feedburner blog for more information.
• Darren Rowse at Problogger has been writing about the Characteristics of Traffic Generating Posts
• Here's a blog which has a poll which asks Do you automatically follow everyone who follos you? In case you're wondering (1) I 'follow' an awful lot of people (2) I still haven't got all the people who I've got in my feedreader into the 'follower' function and (3) I don't follow everyone who follows me - but I will do if I like your content.
  
• Google Reader has had a revamp - square is the new round
• On the topic of comment spam - have a read of this post The Price of Closing Comments on Old Posts from the Blog Herald - not so much for the issue about closing comments so much as the description of how comment spam works - and what makes you vulnerable. It's a real education!
  

......and finally

Birds in the College Greenhouse by Richard Bell

Senior Common Room, Royal College of Art
copyright Richard Bell

Richard Bell MA(RCA) Hons (Wild West Yorkshire ) is an ex graduate of the Royal College of Art and came up to London recently for a gatherine at the Collegeto celebrate the life of Prof. Richard Guyatt (1914-2007), the first ever head of graphic design of the new and reformed postwar RCA and latterly its Rector. (Do read this link to Prof Guyatt's obituary - it's absolutely fascinating!)

In his newsletter Richard mentioned how delighted he was to see his student painting of Birds in the College Greenhouse hanging in pride of place in the Senior Common Room. Lucian Freud's (arguably our greatest living painter) portrait of John Minton hangs on the wall to the right, Peter Blake's (the pop artist best known for his cover of the Beatles' 'Sergeant Pepper' album) portrait of Professor Richard Guyatt hangs on the wall opposite and David Hockney's 'Rakes Progress' etchings hang on the wall near the entrance. Apparently my picture was hung where the college's Francis Bacon painting (recently sold) had been!

Well I couldn't resist and promptly asked Richard whether he could supply a picture of his painting for this post! Here it is - the one at the top shows the whole painting and the one on the right shows an extract.

I'd now love to see more paintings by Richard!