21st June 2009 - Who's made a mark this week? #101

Yesterday was a big day.

• In the morning the scales told me that I'd lost two stone (28lbs) since the beginning of the year (partly due to Sketchercise) despite being more or less housebound for three weeks in March/April
  
• Last night this blog had its 500,000th unique visitor.
  

I hope you all enjoyed Monday's Highlights from "who's made a mark this week"? (June - December 2007).

I'm planning to continue next week with some more highlights from the first three and half years of Making A Mark!

Plus some tips for how to grow your readership and visitors. Above you can see what the graph of growth in visitors looks like.....

Art Blogs

Drawing and sketching

• First of all here's wishing a Happy Anniversary to Jeanne Grant - her blog has just had it's 3rd birthday - Happy Anniversary to My Blog
• Jeanne posted this week about The Sketchbook Project - designed to create a Sketchbook Library. The goal of the project is to create a giant collective of sketchbooks from around the globe and make it accessible to everyone. A Call for Entries! indicates that the deadline for Sketchbook 4 is July 1st
  
• Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) has done a nice post about that a man who can definitely draw - Swedish artist Mattias Adolfson
  
• check out lapin's (les calepins de lapin sketches of barcelona on his google map, Has anybody else produced a Google Map of where they sketch?
  

Coloured pencils and pastels

PEACH Prunus persica 'Springtime'
Janie Pirie SBA GM
coloured pencils
copyright the artist

• UKCPS News has highlighted the success of a couple of members
• It's great to see coloured pencil artwork being recognised as worth a Gold Medal - see UKCPS member Janie Pirie wins an RHS Gold Medal!
• Peter Woof in the 110th Annual Exhibition of The Pastel Society
• Janie Pirie SBA GM is an ex-student of Ann Swan SBA GM (Ann's blog). Ann's book on ‘Botanical Drawing with Coloured Pencil’ is nearing completion -The book is nearly complete

Painters

• I posted It's a watercolour......... which was done last Sunday afternoon. Plus Developing a view of the East Lake and Beschorneria yuccoides

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Art Group Blogs

• I commented on The Urban Sketchers Manifesto - final draft and also took a peek at the post about Travel to Clermont-Ferrand, France
• This is bit different - Vivien Blackburn (Paintings, Prints and Stuff), who is a professional artist and art teacher, has created a tree challenge paint or sketch trees: challenge
• See all the Summer Vegetables on Different Strokes from Different Folks

Art Business and Marketing

• How to progress your career:

• This is one person wrote as My speech to the graduating art school class of 2009 - recommended read!
  
• This is what Lisa Call (Lisa Call) has to say Making Forward Progress in My Art Career
• While Maggie Stiefvater looks at self confidence - In Which Maggie Muses on Self-Confidence. Maggie started writing blog posts about how to get things done when she was an artist. She's not stopped now she's an international author!
  

• Lisa Call has written a number of other useful posts about getting stuff done
  
• Energy - Physical Health
• Energy - Organization and Clutter
• Energy - Attitude
• Energy - Personality Type
• Energy - Making Decisions
  

• Just don't try and be like Kinkade. In the latest Court judgement (which means he has to pay out $2.1 million dollars), Gawker says Thomas Kinkade is a crook (see World's Worst Artist, Jesus Team Up For Scam) while Felix Salmon (Felix SalmonMacroprudential) at Reuters says Thomas Kinkade: Bad, not evil
• Example of Consignment Agreement for Visual Artists - comes with a disclaimer but is still a useful reference
• Joanne Mattera (Joanne Mattera Art Blog) writes about The Artist's Guide: How To Make A Living Doing What You Love by Jackie Battenfield in "The Artist's Guide"
• Edward Winkelman (edward_winkelman)writes about Starting a Commercial Art Gallery in This Economy
• ...and (following on fron the post last week) more on The Re-Pricing Question : Part II
• ...and the special bond between Artists and Animals : Open Thread

Art and the economy

• Bloomberg's reported
• Warhol, Prince Works Fail to Save Art Sales From 70% Decline and that sellers are now trying to negotiate private sales
  
• Sotheby’s Rating Faces Downgrade by Moody’s in Market Decline - what this means is that the people who rate different companies as to their relative value for investment purposes are uncertain about the state of the auction market. This reflects caution amongst investors in relation to art which in turn signals disquiet about the level of sales and the values likely to be generated by auctions of art. In theory there should be a ripple effect ie just as contemporary art values soared to reflect prices paid at auction so they should now reflect the level of disquiet that the values have been over-inflated in the recent past.

Moody’s Investors Service, which already rates Sotheby’s bonds below investment grade, or junk, said it placed its debt on review for a possible downgrade.

• Art Tactic characterises itself as an insider's view of the art market. Estimates for contemporary-art auctions have contracted more. The average auction price of contemporary art has fallen 76.2 percent since May 2008, according to London-based ArtTactic.
• Online sites selling art are facing a similar situation to auction houses: Sales are down - according to this article Online art auctions take hit from economy in the San Francisco Chronicle

Art Collectors

• The Price of Advice
• Thanks to Art Market Monitor for alerting me to this article in the Economist - Collectors like nothing better than a good economic downturn

Art Competitions

• For artists using coloured pencils this is the FINAL REMINDER: 24th June - deadline for UKCPS exhibition entries I shall be submitting at the last minute as per usual! I'm just wondering whether to submit four works - which I'm entitled to do as a full member. If I get accepted this year I get signature status!
• American Artist magazine has announced it will be judging Utrecht Art Supplies' 60th Anniversary Art Competition, a competition with more than $12,000 in prizes open to all artists in the United States
  
• I've got a post coming up on the ING Discerning Eye Call for Entries next week.
  

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

• the new Channel 4 project Life Class: Today's Nude is a Jerwood/Artangel Open Commission
  

• Live life (drop in) drawing classes next week: 22 - 26 June /29 June - 4 July in five locations across London – in the City, Soho, Covent Garden, Canary Wharf and Bloomsbury – and in four cities across the UK: Manchester, Bristol, Southampton and Glasgow prior to the screening of...........
• Channel 4 Broadcast: 6 - 10 July 2009, 12.30pm with John Berger, Judy Purbeck, Maggi Hambling, Gary Hume and Humphrey Ocean
• the panel discussion on Today's Nude is on 7th July at Conway Hall at 7pm.
  

Alan Kane, Maggi Hambling and Humphrey Ocean discuss their individual perspectives on life drawing, its renewed popularity and the aim of Life Class: Today's Nude in disseminating the activity via television.

• More workshops:
• Sally Strand is giving her "Colour of Light" Workshop at San Clemente Center for Art next month
• Deborah Paris (Deborah Paris Fine Art) has a few spots left in her virtual class on "Painting the Luminous Landscape" (July 17- August 14, 2009)
• Linda Blondheim (Linda Blondheim Art Notes) has a new e-class for artists using acrylic paint who'd like to achieve an 'oil-like' look to their work in acrylics
  
• Art Studio Secrets suggests that you Explore your dominant side in relation to vision

Art Exhibitions

Peter Monkman - winner of the BP Portrait Award 2009
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The BP Portrait Award was announced on Tuesday evening and I was there! The exhibitions for the BP Portrait Award and the BP Travel Award opened to the public on Thursday. Here are my four posts!

• Peter Monkman wins first prize in BP Portrait Award 2009 - proof that you can have a full time job and win a major international art prize!
• Sue Rubira makes her mark on BP Portrait - very refreshing to see a portrait built up in stages from life
• Exhibition review: BP Portrait Award - gives you an insight into the changes in this year's exhibition and the relative size of some of the pieces
• Exhibition Review: BP Travel Award 2008 - Emmanouil Bitsakis - it's inspiring to see what can be achieved when you travel to an area with a project in mind

Futurism opened at Tate Modern on 12th June. I'm no fan - and it's maybe the case I've got company - at least in relation to this exhibition. Here's a few reviews

• Adrian Searle (The Guardian) - Art review: Futurism falls flat at Tate Modern

You expect an exhibition on futurism to clamour with the noise and energy of modern life, but this utters barely a whisper........But Tate Modern's new futurism show, which has travelled from Paris and Rome, feels staid and dull, flat and sluggish. Many of the best works have not made the journey

• Richard Dorment (Daily Telegraph) - Futurism at the Tate Modern: a glimpse into tomorrow’s whirl has some major criticisms
  

The show, which opened in Paris and has been seen in Rome, is an ambitious attempt to present Futurism as European-wide art movement. What surprised me, however, is how little truly important art was made under its influence. ...........What should have been an eye-opening, groundbreaking show was spoiled for me by a more or less incomprehensible open-plan installation........(and) the verbiage of a poorly designed catalogue.

• Souren Milikian New Tork Times - The Futurists’ Futile Chase After Motion - more about the movement than the exhibition

Paradise in Plasticene - which is a plasticene sculpture created by James May and others and first seen at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show can now be seen at Royal Festival Hall, Level 2 Green Side (I don't think that's a pun!) until 5th July.

Paradise in Plasticine is a sculpted art installation, inspired by nature’s variety and fecundity, and framed in the guise of a mystical secret garden from the dreamscape of childhood.

Art History

• Have you ever wondered what Audbon's Birds of America looked like? - Check out this post
• I missed the first episode of The Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Revolutionaries on BBC4 so will be watching out for repeats. Meanwhile next week it's about how they transformed landscape painting by microscopically examining the natural world. Here's a summary of what the Pre-Raphaelites were about.
  

Art Museums and Galleries

• The Hermitage Amsterdam (Amstel 51, Amsterdam) opened yesterday. Thanks for the tweet from the VanGoghMuseum which alerted me to this (and thanks for following me too!) The first exhibition At the Russian Court should be one of the most largest and most lavish exhibitions ever presented in Europe - it will have over 1,800 objects on loan from the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg on display. I'm going to be looking up options for visiting!
  

Hermitage Amsterdam is the only dedicated, independently managed venue in the West of St Petersburg’s magnificent State Hermitage Museum. At the Russian Court — a scholarly researched exploration of the opulent material culture, elaborate social hierarchy and richly layered traditions of the Tsarist court at its height in the 19th century — will remain on show from June 20th in the new institution until January 31st 2010.

• By way of contrast (do I mean that?) you can find out about what it's like Inside the brave new world of Elton John’s shrine to modern art (Evening Standard)

Art Supplies

• A couple of posts on Making A Mark reviews:

• Art shop review: San Clemente Art Supply - is your art supply shop providing advice and support for being green, recycling and disposing of art materials safely?
• Product Feedback: Winsor & Newton sketchbooks is about what happened when Sue Smith (Sue's Sketch Blog) complained to Winsor & Newton about what had happened to her favourite Sketchbooks

Book reviews

• Book Review: BP Portrait Award 2009 catalogue - I wish they'd improve it.

Creativity

This video about creativity came to me via Enrique Flores - thank you Enrique. It's very profound and it's very funny

and finally........

a bit of fun!

Maybe next year the platform for the guest speaker at the BP Portrait Award won't be placed right in front of a picture of a pink toy cat which appears to want to play 'rabbit ears' with Sebastien Faulks?

Sebastien Faulks with Yvonne Peachey (winner of BP Travel Award 2009)
.....and a pink cat!
photo copyright Katherine Tyrrell