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Sunday, June 14, 2009

14th June 2009 - Who's made a mark this week? (#100)


This is my 100th "who's made a mark this week?"
which I guess makes it the centenary edition! :)

Plus in the next 7-10 days this blog will notch up its visitor #500,000 - as in half a million unique visitors since it started back in December 2005.

"Who's made a mark this week started two years ago because I ended up with too many interesting bits of information to share and needed a weekly blog post devoted to sharing what I'd found interesting in the previous week. I found it also helped me to theme my posts around topics which interest me.

Lots of people ask me how I do it. The answer is I do it because I have both the time and the inclination and I get an awful lot of pleasure from highlighting the work of other people as well as my own

I'll be celebrating with a virtual party as soon as statcounter hits 500,000 visitors - watch out for the blog post and/or tweet!

Art Blogs



Sketchercise

I'd like to say a big welcome to all the new people who took up Sketchercise this week. Laura (Laura's watercolours) is really getting into the swing of it - see becaming and A rare sunny day. Plus Rose Welty has this very helpful post What if you want to but cant get started?
  • you can read about Sketchercise! on Making a Mark. I'm sorry to all the people who asked to join the ning community - but we've decided to grow slowly and limit new members for the time being to people who have already got the sketchercise habit
  • plus there's now a second group Sketchercise - on Flickr too! for all those who'd like to give it a go. Get the habit here and then graduate to the ning community. (I'm still trying to work out why only some of the images are showing up in the Flickr Group Pool!)
  • plus for those who now need to get a sketching chair or stool I've reviewed the ones I use - see Art Supplies below.
Now that I wear a pedometer all the time, it was very interesting to see how my steps dropped right down after I fell off the tree on Wednesday and sprained my ankle. It really showed me how little exercise I get if I just sit at my computer all day - which was all I did the day after while I resting it. Plus how bad for our health, desk jobs can be are if we don't make an effort to move around and just move from desk chair to car to armchair to bed and around again. Gosh I'm sounding really preachy - but as somebody who has mobility problems I'm feeeling so much better for taking more exercise and losing weight.

Drawing and sketching

The Bird Lady and the lake in St James Park (with Horseguards in the background)
8" x 10", pen and ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell
Coloured pencils and pastels
Painters Art Group Blogs

Art Business and Marketing

In the gallery system the term "primary gallery" means an artist's main gallery, or #1 in the pecking order. This is the gallery that maintains his/her master archive, does much of the communications promoting their career (i.e., with institutions planning exhibitions), will work to raise the money to produce most of the work in situations where that's part of the artist's practice, and generally resides in a high-profile market, meaning they get the kind of traffic/critical attention for the artist that other galleries in other locations just can't. In return they may stipulate terms for representation by which their investment in building the markets for their artists is returned to them through commission on sales in other galleries.

Art and the economy

One nice benefit of working for yourself is that you can’t be laid off. You may not be bringing in the money like you should, but at least no one can take away your ability to make money.

Art Competitions

Art Education / Tips and techniques

Art Exhibitions

Edvard Munch: Prints is dedicated to prints by Edvard Munch (1863-1944) and is the most substantial Munch print exhibition in the UK for over 35 years. Featuring 40 of the artist's finest prints, the exhibition has been selected to illustrate his development as a graphic artist as well as the important themes of his art. The show will include the lithograph version of the iconic The Scream, which is one of the most famous pictures in the world.

Art History


Check out a couple of listings of top artists and see whether you agree with either of them

Art Journals


The Art Wolf is an online art magazine which tries to provide a global, international overview of the contemporary Art, with a special interest in the artists of today. In addition, it publishes the most important news about the Art world and Art market, and highlights the most relevant exhibitions of the Art world. It started just after this blog and has grown and developed over the last 3+ years and has become a useful reference site. However it lacks a feed - which is sad.

Art Societies

Art Studios


Check out tweets about "open studio" and see just how many hosts on Twitter neglect to provide any indication of where and when! ;)

Art Supplies


I cannot recommend this chair highly enough for people who want a very good quality chair which will be robust, reliable and longlasting.
Product Review: Phillips De Luxe Folding Chair

Art video

  • Take a look at Art Babble - it's the first channel oriented, tag accessed art video website that has looked remotely interesting to me - although I have to confess I've only scraped the surface. I like the way you can access videos via tags which describe the genre or type of art they're about (eg

ArtBabble was conceived, initiated, designed, built, sculpted, programmed, shot, edited, painted and launched by a cross-departmental collection of individuals at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). It is intended to showcase video art content in high quality format from a variety of sources and perspectives.
ArtBabble was created so others will join in spreading the world of art through video.
Babble on.


The Techie bit - computers, websites, blogging and digital copyright

Next week the Digital Britain report will be published. This is the Digital Britain website and you can read the Interim Report - published in January and today the Sunday Telegraph comments on Lord Carter's Digital Britain report. Although largely related to telecommunications, broadband and radio it does also cover digital content rights - so is of interest to those who put their content protected work on the Internet.

On 29 January 2009 the Government published a plan to secure Britain’s place at the forefront of the global digital economy. The interim report contains more than 20 recommendations, including specific proposals on..........a new deal for digital content rights

Rule One – Know Thyself – Know They Blog!
Rule Two – Start Compelling Conversations!
Rule Three – Value.
Rules Four – Make Friends Not Fans
Rule Five – Reward Participation.
Rule Six – Take Breaks!
Rule Seven – Always Upgrade.
from Cali Lewis on Community Building

and finally........


I'm a great admirer of Joanna Lumley (Ab Fab / human rights activist etc) so am always interested in her various projects. I absolutely LOVED seeing recently pin a government minister down for an admission of rights which will be granted to the Gurkhas while standing in front of BBC TV cameras in her recent fight on behalf of the Gurkhas.

So I was greatly intrigued by a couple of articles in The Times to see that her next acting venture is described as Joanna Lumley goes to war again in satire on modern art world. The film Boogie Woogie is adapted by Danny Moynihan from his dark comic novel of the same name and premieres on 26th June at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. This depicts the contemporary art world as "an incestuous jungle inhabited by heartless agents, controversy-courting artists and corrupt dealers". Damieh Hirst has apparently acted as an adviser (see Damien Hirst turns to film with the art satire Boogie Woogie). Part of me thinks, given the people involved in making it, that this new film might yet be another bit of art world manipulation by the likes of Damien Hirst. It would be really nice to be proved wrong.

Making a Mark reviews......

8 comments:

  1. Hirst acting as adviser for a film that satirizes the art world while he himself is part of a consortium buying and driving up prices of his own work? Beggars belief! I wonder if the 'art world' as we have known it actually exists anymore.

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  2. Congratulations on the 100 and the 500,000. You have definitely MADE A MARK! I look forward to the MAM every Sunday, like I used to look forward to the NY Times. I just got a new folding stool, inspired by you for my sketchercizing, to replace the one I lost that was great. The new one (WalkStool Comfort 55) is even better, more comfy and suited for tall people like me. It's also available internationally (yours was not available in U.S.) Let me know if you'd like more info about it for your reviews section?

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  3. Yes please Jana - anybody who does a product or a book review can let me know and I'll do a summary of it on Making A Mark Reviews and then post a link to the review on your blog.

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  4. Katherine, many congratulations. You are an amazing person. It takes me all my time to read your blog and all the interesting references. It's better than any newspaper. But tell me , what on earth you were doing up a tree. I think that's taking sketchercise a bit too far, or may be in this case it should be called stretchercise!!! I hope to visit the Mall galleries this week. The PS exhibition is one of my favourites.
    Jenni

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  5. One hundred BRAVAS, Katherine. I remember every one. Your Sunday post is a highlight of my week. Congratulations and thank you.

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  6. One hundred BRAVAs, Katherine. Your Sunday post is a highlight of my week.

    Congratulations and thanks.

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  7. Uff ..you know how to keep readers busy Katherine. Your weekly summary is a must read for me and the 100th issue is full packed again! Congratulations.

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  8. Well done! Here's to the next 100!

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