26th April 2009 - Who's made a mark this week?

This week I've been very absorbed with the Annual "Flowers and Gardens" Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists. - not least because I've got two works in it for the first time!

However the main reason for the preoccupation is that I was so impressed (and humbled) by the quality of the work when I visited the Private View on Thursday. Hence why I decided to have two posts about it this year.

• Exhibition Review: Society of Botanical Artists #1 provides an overview of the exhibition
  
• Exhibition Review: Society of Botanical Artists #2 focuses more on individual artists.
  

The image today is of the two watercolour paintings which won two of the major prizes at the SBA Annual Exhibition.

(top) Winner of the Margaret Grainger Memorial Bowl (for the best painting by a member within 2 years elected in the previous two years) - Helianthus, August Sunflower by Fiona Strickland DA SBA GM
(watercolour)
(bottom) Winner of The Joyce Cumming Presentation Award
Banksia integrifolia seedcone by Graham Corbett
(watercolour)
copyright the artists / photographed with permission of the SBA

Congratulations also to Tracy Hall (Watercolour Artist Diary), Doris Joa (Romantic roses in watercolour) and Denise Ryan who have also got work in the show.

Art Blogs

Don't forget to vote in the poll (see right hand column) about What's your favourite subject matter? There's just three days left to join the 150+ people who have already voted. An analysis of the results will be posted on Friday.

Drawing and sketching

• Congrats to Gabi Campanario (Seattle Sketcher - on Blogger) who has managed to get himself a gig doing a sketchblog for the Seattle Times called (guess!) - Seattle Sketcher (but with a different URL).
  
• Wally Torta (Crackskull Bob)achieved something similar with one of his local papers some time ago. Wally has been experimenting with a feature of Google Maps which hasn't been used too much by sketchers to date. This is a larger version of Wally Torta's Downtown-Some sketch highlights of downtown Norfolk, Virginia
• I loved France Belleville's 'half face' portrait drawing - An exercise in values on Wagonised - which allows me to see all the marks she made in creating it. I always like looking at marks and working out how people draw.
  

Coloured pencils and pastels

• On Monday I posted the "Making A Mark" interview with Ann Kullberg a very well known and highly popular coloured pencil artist and tutor. In it she explains her approach to art and fitting everything in!
  

Painters

• Deborah Ross (Art by Deborah Ross) has a new self portrait blog - Artists Paint Themselves. The idea is for artists to share their self-portraits. Deborah is getting quite a few submissions but is happy to receive more!

All you have to do is email a sharp jpg with a title, size, medium and your name and blog or website address. If you'd like to give some background on the piece, that would be cool. Sorry, no photographs, no digital artwork. Only drawings and paintings.

• Duane Keiser has changed his original blog back to its original name - a Painting a Day. I guess when that's the name everybody knows you by it's probably best to keep it! Duane is going to be painting in Northeast Harbor in Maine for the entire month of July - I wonder if we'll see Postcard from Maine.
• Is it a general consensus that (like Duane) it's a good idea to keep sales blogs separate from studio/discussion blogs? Tina Mammoser (The Cycling Artist) has started using her new blog called The Cycling Artist - Paintings of the Coast to post current works available to purchase with exclusive blog-only items such as drawings and studies.
  

Printmakers

• Sherrie (Brush and Baren) has a nice WIP about producing some treeny tiny linocuts - A tiny flock of sparrows
• I was going to write briefly about a Thomas Bewick exhibition - but it's turned into a blog post for next week instead!
  

Art Group Blogs

This week the members of the Watermarks blog had a bit of a posting extravaganza on Earth Day - and we came up with various posts to do with appreciation of our environment and why we need to protect it. These are the posts:

• Water on Earth Day - What you can do today
• Water on "earth day" - a clear brook
• Water on Earth Day rubbish in the city
• Water on Earth Day-Chicago Lake and River Front
• Water on "Earth Day" - Coast erosion
• Water on "Earth Day" Morning Mist on the Helford
• Water on Earth Day – Newfoundland’s pristine reputation?
• Water on Earth Day: no water in sight in Elquí Valley, Chile
  

Art Business and Marketing

• I'm getting the impression that eBay is becoming less important to artists in terms of online sales. For people who are still selling via eBay, the Auction Bytes Blog and other sites have news of some changes on eBay

• eBay Traffic Drops in First Quarter from a Year Ago
• eBay Considering a Certified Seller Program
• changes to eBay's Product-Return Requirements in US and UK
• eBay Moves toward Guaranteed Buyer Satisfaction
• EBay —Not PayPal—To Handle Dispute Resolution

• The e-commerce guide provides help to those new to selling art online - such as SEO Tips for New Web-Shop Owners
  
• Linda Blondheim (Linda Blondheim Art Notes) wrote about A change in the way I approach the newsletter - some obvious points and ones which a lot of us ignore!
• Empty Easel highlighted 5 Ways to Sell More Art From Your Website - Without Increasing Traffic
  
• I came across another example this week of the power of communities of like minded people when it comes to tackling the recession. Artbeat Brecon represents a group of art and craft businessesBrecon. The aim is to raise the profiles of individual artists, sustain sales and increase awareness of the creative arts this area of mid Wales. Last week they were the subject of an article in the Guardian!

Art and the economy

The downturn

• The New York Times reported yesterday that More Artworks Sell in Private in Slowdown. The notion is that collectors are now avoiding the auction houses when selling art to avoid any signals to the wider world about their current financial status. Which is either very wise or means there's a lot of collectors who are feeling financial pain right now.
• In the UK there have been indications of how art organisations are coping - or not - in the recession. The Daily Telegraph suggests that Regional arts organisations 'hardest hit by recession' but also that there is a Funding boost to help arts weather recession

Successes

• The top 25 arts destinations in terms of big, medium sized and small cities in the USA can be found in an article in American Style.
  

Art Competitions

• This week I highlighted the Call for entries - 2009 RWS/Sunday Times Watercolour Competition

Art Education

• Apparently Ofsted finds boys are not stimulated by art lessons.

Art Exhibitions

• The 142^nd Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society goes on the road next month. This is the Traveling Exhibition Schedule for anybody living in Texas, Alabama, Tenneessee, Virginia, Florida and Massachusetts who'd like to see it. I was very surprised to see that there's no trip planned to the thriving art communities on the west coast. Does anybody know why that is?
• There is an exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein's work in an exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art (which for some reason doesn't appear to have a website!). The New York Times has a review titled In Sketches and Collages: Lichtenstein’s Workaday Musings
• I wrote in Auditioning for SOFA about submitting work for the Society of Feline Artists exhibition. Yesterday afternoon I had a phone call from the Gallery and two works have been accepted into the exhibition (Meet the Kittens and Kittens Rule OK!) and it looks as though Meet the Kittens will also be in the official SOFA/Gallery PV invitation/catalogue - which is a first for me!

Art History

• You can find A Brief History of 19th and 20th century outdoor painting on Art and Influence
  

Art Supplies

• On Making a Mark reviews...... I did an update on the poll Which is your favourite make of artist grade coloured pencil? which I've been running on my coloured pencils information site. for some time. It now has over 500 responses and shows Polychromos still neck and neck with Prismacolor - but the rankings behind them have changed in the last 9 months since the last update. I'm interested in hearing from people happy to review different brands of coloured pencils.
  
• Tracy Helgeson (Works by Tracy Helgeson) has been writing about My Palette - a fascinating read given the nature of Tracy's strong colourist approach to painting. You can also get a really goo indisght into how Tracy works, her set-up and how she stores her paints. Great comments too - also sharing approaches to organising paints.
  

The colors that I currently am obsessed with (these colors change periodically, I am very fickle) are Indigo Blue, Green Ural, Medium Cadmium Yellow, Azo Green, Gamblin Light Blue, Caeser Purple, Vasari Ship Rock, Gamblin Light Magenta, Gamblin Cadmium Red Deep, Cobalt Green Pale, Cinnabar Green Light, Old Holland Violet Grey.

• Rose Welty identified Flick as being a good cheap database for artists. BTW - Rose has left Rose's Art Lines and set up a new blog. Her blog is now on http://www.rosewelty.com//blog_index.html
  
• I picked up a block of Sennelier Hot Press paper at the SBA exhibition and will be trying it out very soon and reviewing it over on Making a mark reviews......
  

Book reviews

• Guess what - I came away from the SBA exhibition with two new books!
• Book Review: Colored Pencil Secrets for Success is about Ann Kullberg's brand new book which is due to published next month.
• There's a fascinating blog post about The Google Settlement on the Grayson Agency which should be read by every author or would-be author. It also sets a precedent in relation to copyright infringement - which might just get used in relation to visual material as well as books. This is a link to a pdf file AGLA Guide to the Google Settlement. Opting out or lodging objections must be done before 5th May!
  

Grumpy Literary Agent’s comments on the Google Settlement
The more we have studied this, the worse the situation and the implications have become.

Copyright

My last post on the topic of Sheryl Luxenburg - American Watercolor Society Gold Medal - the final verdict on Sheryl Luxenburg - is apparently NOT the final verdict. That has been left to the Society of Canadian Artists (SCA). Many of you will recall the furore associated with the award of the American Watercolor Society's Gold Medal in 2008. You may recall at the time she asserted that she'd made a simple mistake. It turns out that she's made it more than once.

Below you'll find an extract from a statement about prizes won by Ms Luxemburg on the website of the SCA. Awards made to her have been rescinded and she has also been banned from entering future competitions held by the SCA. I'm guessing few will now need reminders of the complete folly of copying other people's work! I cannot help but feel that people might now draw their own conclusions about other aspects of her work and her 'unique technique'.

In its statement of Policies and Procedures, Under By-law No. One, the SCA clearly stipulates that "Artists may submit works of art in all media. Entries must not be copies, derivatives, or based in any way on other copyrighted or published paintings, photographs or other artistic work." Also, entry forms signed by the artist carry either or both a reminder and a disclaimer to that effect.

It having been determined, through careful examination, that Ms. Luxenburg's entries in both SCA's 39th Annual Open Juried Exhibition in 2006, at Todmorden, and in SCA's 40th National Open Exhibition in August 2007, at Ogilvy in Montreal violated this fundamental principle governing SCA's eligibility requirements, the SCA rescinded recognition of these awards and requested that Medallion and prize moneys be returned. Also, Ms Luxenburg's membership in the Society of Canadian Artists has been permanently revoked, and she is disqualified from entering any future SCA exhibitions.

2006 and 2007 SCA AWARDS

Tips and Techniques

• On Earth Day I wrote about Earth Day - and how to draw a tree! - which is about a very helpful website created by ace artist/ draughtsman/printmaker Martin Stankewitz (Edition Handdruck)

Drawing of a fruit tree meadow
Martin Stankewitz

• While earlier in the week, I decided to reflect on sketches from the past and Prague interior - and making notes while sketching
• Here's a couple of very useful tips from Richard McKinley writing on the Pastel Pointers Blog
• A Warm Undertone
• Determining Value

Websites and Blogging

• Darren Rowse is having a 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge over on ProBlogger. This is the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog - Two Thirds Through Update and here's today's example Breathe Life Into an Old Post [Day 21 - 31DBBB] which includes 7 Ways to Update a Post and Give it New Life which harks back to ‘crafting blog posts‘ . I have to say if there's one thing I see over and over again it's art bloggers failing to make the most of their material so that their blog posts loses impact. You can you can sign up the blog challenge at any time and 12,000 have!
  
• Here's an SEO Glossary from the SEO Theory - SEO Theory and Analysis Blog. At last somewhere to check out those phrases which I think I understand!

and finally.........

I think I may have offended the Technology Fairy. In the last three weeks, my 13 month old Vaio laptop died, the desktop began to malfunction due to a registry error; then the major car repair had added extras which I wasn't expecting.

This week

• the TV died very quietly on Wednesday night in the middle of Channel 4 News. Not entirely unexpected but the timing was atrocious!
  
• and then.........my very reliable washing machine threw a wobbly yesterday afternoon and now has an error code which isn't in the manual - and a load of washing inside!

I'm now left looking at the remaining technology and wondering what else if going to go pffffft!