12th April 2009 - Who's made a mark this week?

Easter Ducklings on the Ecology Park Ponds

I'm a very happy Easter Bunny because I managed to find and buy a new computer base unit yesterday. Having had a Vaio laptop that has now died three times and a desktop which was still malfuntioning after a repair I decided enough was enough! Even if they were repaired I'd got to the point where it felt like neither was reliable any more. I've now got a new base unit with a very fast CPU and an excellent graphics card. I'm minus a compatible graphics program at the moment but will get that sorted tomorrow - hence pics this Easter Sunday are strictly limited to photos of Spring in East London.

Thank you to all of you who suggested what you've found reliable in the way of computers. Both PC and Mac users might like to take a look at people had to say about Macs running Windows and what an ex Mac User had to say re the Mac vs PC debate in More computer problems. Personally speaking I've been amazed at how difficult it is to now buy a computer quickly which isn't entry level!

I'm also back on my feet - at last - and walking around normally after three weeks of minimal movement. I went out for my first longish test walk last Wednesday without too many problems and was able to photograph the Ecology Park Ponds springing and greening. Mrs Mallard has had her ducklings and the brood was having swimming lessons!

Art Blogs

Congratulations to....

• Pete Scully (Pete Skully) who is celebrating his fourth blog birthday with frohe geblogstag
• Barbara Benedetti Newton (Barbara Benedetti Newton - Art Journal) who has had one of her works chosen for the postcard for the upcoming Women Painters of Washington exhibition, "Summer Dreaming"

Drawing

• Jana Bouc (Jana’s Journal and Sketch Blog) is participating in Who Am I? (Fake Journal Month).
• On Wednesday I asked How do you draw? #1. This post includes a couple of polls - how you draw and whether/how you move your paper around about which I'll report on next Saturday. Some very inteersting results so far - do read the post and vote if you've not yet done so.
  

22nd World Wide Sketchcrawl
Yesterday was the 22nd World Wide Sketchcrawl . Unfortunately I was much preoccupied with a sick car and sick computers and didn't get a chance to participate. Here are some of the people who did

• The biggest sketchcrawl always seems to be in San Francisco - home of Enrico who organises it. This year he was still recovering from flu. however there. Jana Bouc (Jana’s Journal and Sketch Blog) joined Martha (Trumpetvine Travels) for Sketchcrawl 22: Colusa Circle, Kensington/El Cerrito, CA
• Pica and Numenius (The Magpie Nest - feathers of hope ) were in Sacramento for A Birthday Sketchcrawl
• Shirley (Papers and Threads) was doing More sketching at the Met
  
• Plus here are the results from the major locations:
• TOKYO / Japan [RESULTS]
• Yokohama/Japan[RESULTS]
• Seoul-Korea [RESULT]
• BEIJING - CHINA [RESULTS] - I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there are people lazing around in Starbucks in Beijing as well as everywhere else!
  
• Madrid (results) - check out Enrique Flores who's posted his sketches

Painting

• On Thursday I wrote about Margaret Mee - and how I'd found out that one of the more popular botanical artists of the twentieth century didn't even start painting botanical art until she was 40+. The fact that she also painted Brazilian flora while exploring Brazil and the Amazonian rainforest makes it even more noteworthy - you can find out even more in Margaret Mee - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers.
• Paul (Learning to see) has a a really great step by step of painting a pot of crysants from life
• Laura (Laurelines) has been making progress with her paintings of water.
• I've only just spotted this very nice painting of Silver, Glass, and Oranges on Jeff Hayes's blog (State of the Art). He's achieved really great colours and textures.
• Lindsay Olson (Non Linear Arts) of Illinois has been sorting out how she delivers her artwork on the internet. She now has a blog dedicated to her project Tools of the Trade which is about a citizen's view of law enforcement

Tools of The Trade, my newest blog, documents my learning curve as the Artist In Residence at the Oak Park Police Department. Follow along as I work to visually express concepts and tools of law enforcement, experiment with new media and try new ways of thinking about my art making

Print-making

• An interesting Printsy Interview with Mark Mason (Curiously Drawn) and how he came to be involved in print-making. His blog is not very active but the posts are worth a read.
• Have you checked out the Printsy Flickr Group?
  

Group Blogs

• On Different Strokes from Different FolksI'm fascinated to learn that Karin Jurick paints the same way as she draws in pastel. I don't think I've seen any of Karin's pastels..........just a hint. See the results of Week 29-31 Challenge-Diana Sculpture

Marsh Marigolds at the Ecology Park Ponds

Art Business and Marketing

• On Monday I asked the question How much are you paying yourself?
• Thanks to Alyson Stanfield for altering me to the NPR debate about On Ethics, Is Art Market Worse Than Stock Market? You can to Listen: The Unedited Audio Of The Debate between Jerry Saltz, Amy Cappellazzo, Chuck Close and Adam Lindemann

Art Competitions

• My post - Threadneedle Prize Registration Opens - on Thursday notes the changes in the call for entries and the juors for 2009 and provides some practical suggestions re the logistics of submitting work to a location in Hackney, London.

Art Education

• James Gurney (Gurney Journey) commented on the approaches adopted by the Academy of Realist Art

Art Exhibitions

Art fairs

• Andrea Joseph (andrea joseph's sketchblog) has been to the Bologna Chilren's Book Fair (her photos) and comments on how great it was to meet up with fellow bloggers in how soon is now?. Shewhere she met up Miguel (Free(k)hand) and Lapin (Les calepins de lapin). Miguel organised a sketchcrawl and wrote about the fair in Drawing guests
  

Art exhibitions

• I'm very fed up that the combination of being off my feet and computer problems meant that I missed the exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in watercolour - however Vivien Blackburn (Paintings, Prints and Stuff) went last Saturday and this is her review of the Watercolour exhibition in London

What I love about this society is their openness - to them watercolour is about making paintings and not making pictures in narrow confines dictated by some committee who are full of 'thou shalt nots'. Watercolours were mixed with acrylic, gouache, pastel., oil pastel, charcoal, collage and more making for vibrant imaginative work alongside beautifully subtle pieces.

• I'm going to be going over the river to see Deborah Paris's recent paintings at the Blackheath Gallery.
• It would be lovely to be able to get down to Falmouth to see Sarah Wimperis's paintings in the Easter Show at the Beside the Wave Gallery. See more on her blog The Red Shoes
  

Art History

The landscapes painted by Cezanne are apparently under threat from the new route for the TGV through Provence. See Rail threat to Cézanne's landscape in The today's Observer.

Artists Studios

• Charley Parker at Lines and Colors has been highlighting Studio Spaces
• Nicole Caulfield (Nicole Caulfield Art Journal) has a panoramic montage of photos of her third studio up on her blog in Studio Pics & Shiver Update
• Deborah Paris (A Painting Life) has started Studio Improvements.
• while Tina Mammoser (The Cycling Artist) is on her way to her new studio - with the monkeys! See Hanging around the new studio... and 4 days... to new studio!!! She's moving in Tuesday evening.
• Elsehwhere in the UK an art squat culture has taken root according to The Observer
  
• Meanwhile there is an exhibition devoted to A Day in the Life: Norman Rockwell’s Stockbridge Studio opens at the Norman Rockwell Museum on May 2nd

Art Supplies

• On Tuesday I announced that A new blog - Making a Mark Reviews will start this next week. (Now you can imagine what I felt like after announcing that and the laptop died for the third time!)
  

Tips and techniques

• Cathy Johnson (The Quicksilver Workaholic) has been experimenting with Cyclamen, mineral paints demo

Websites and blogging

• The Blog Herald recently wrote about The case for and against blog editors
• Ping-O-Matic is a service to update different search engines that your blog has updated. It's recently received a makeover - and its blog spoke for the first time in very nearly three years!
• an interesting take on URL shorteners for all you twitterers - Are URL Shorteners A Necessary Evil, Or Just Evil? on Techcrunch
  

and finally......

You can read an interview with me in on Cathy Johnson's Art Tips - it's the second in her tips about keeping an art blog.