6th September 2009 - Who's made a mark this week?

Los Angeles fires
copyright Pat Reece

This is a watercolour sketch by Pat Reese (Pat Reece Design) of the fires burning in the hills on the outskirts of Los Angelese. You can read her blog post about making this sketch in Los Angeles County

I've featured this because, apart from one person, I can't seem to find anybody else who is drawing, sketching or painting the wildfires or their effects. I have however found some artists who have painted subjects linked to the wildfires in the past.

• Orange Moon From the Fires by Shiho Nakaza on Urban Sketchers (1st September 2009
• [UPDATE: Robyn has commented and highlighted Dee Farnsworth's impressive Fire Fighter series of watercolours on dee farnsworth]
  
• In 2008, Karen Winters (The Creative Journey) found a painting done of an area prior to the wildfires and sold it to contribute to a local charity Santa Barbara, Montecito California painting benefit - Before the Wildfire. Reading her most recent blog posts gives you a sense of what it has been like this year. Karen explains that the mandatory evacuation area came within 2000 feet of her home and that the air quality where she is so poor that it's considered hazardous to stay out for too long - which I guess explains why she hasn't been out painting the fires.
• In 2007, Tom Brown (Tom Brown Fine Aart ) did go out to paint the wildfires near his home - see California Wildfire, Historic Painting and wrote

Wildfires are still burning out of control in Southern California near my home. The photo was taken in my neighborhood Monday morning when I set out with my paints to capture this awesome sight in oils.

As I created this painting on location small bits of ash fell and became embedded in the oil paint. They can easily be brushed off when the painting is dry but I decided to leave them now, as they impart a sense of history to this piece.

My thoughts are with all my blogging friends who live in Southern Califoria and who are experiencing the impact of the wildfires.

Congratulations to...

• Different Strokes from Different Folks which has just had its 1st birthday and has been hugely successful and become a very popular group blog (of sorts). Karin Jurick recounts how it all started in Week 46-48 Challenge - Cupcakes - you'll have to brave an excess of cupcakes though!
• Art News Blog which was 5 years old at the end of August - see ArT nEwS bLoG iS 5 YeArS oLd! I always say getting through the first three months is probably the most difficult task but we're now beginning to see who has the stamina to go the distance!

Art Blogs

Drawing and sketching

Have you taken a look at some of the city based Urban Sketchers blogs? Here are is the one for Seoul and some of the contributors blogs. Nice to get an eastern perspective on the urban aspects of life.

• Urban Sketchers Seoul
• Lee Yong-hwan (Archiartist Lee ) has an appetite for large and complex structures!
• Yoo Byung-hwa (Yoo Drawing) produces exceptionally colourful and loose sketches of what she sees around her.
  
• Kim Mikyung uses her blogs as a creative diary
• Song Hye-sun (Song Hye-sun Sketch) produces very nice drawings
  
• ecrireJ paints in watercolour
  
• Choo Yun Tae has some very attractive paintings of rural scenery

sketches of Seven Dials and Neal's Yard

• Drawn highlighted Andrew Schick - and he's definitely worth highlighting - although I don't normally think of LiveJournal blogs as being image oriented - this is his blog
• Nolon Stacey produces fine drawings in graphite - see Leaping into the world of the starving artist - which has got to be one of the longer blog names I've come across!
• I love this drawing by Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) of Otters in coloured pencil
• A couple of posts from me from one trip out (three if you count the review of the art bookshop! - see below) to the Seven Dials area just west of Covent Garden.
  • Sketching at Seven Dials
  • Sketching in Neal's Yard
• Plus my post about How to create a Google map for sketches and sketchercise - I'm really getting into these!
  

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

• Two artists delivering high quality coloured pencil work are Gary Ruuska on his Colored Pencil (and more) Journal (you need to click blog posts to see the full post. He helpfully explains which coloured pencils he has used for his work. Gary is having a joint exhibition next month with my friend and popular coloured pencil artist/tutor Nicole Caulfield (Nicole Caulfield Art Journal) at the Jaffrey Civic Center Auditorium Gallery
• Liz Patterson displays some very nice work still life art in coloured pencils on pastelbord on her blog Liz Patterson Art Journal Cartoons
• I'm liking the pastel painting work of John Kelley - the studio! However I did get pretty frustrated with the circular links as I started to explore........
• Natalie Mascall is producing really excellent work in pastel and was probably the fastest selling artist at the Previewof the SOFA exhiition. No blog as yet though.....
  

Illustration and Fantasy Art

• I adore James Gurney's post about how he died a thousand deaths - all for his art!
  Cumberland, Part 3: Acting It Out

Painters and Painting

• Tracy Helgeson (Works by Tracy Helgeson) is Going Abstract, Baby! - looks interesting
• while Sarah Wimperis (The Red Shoes) has been painting at night! Check out The Night Garden and Night Light and Helford Regatta.
• I though I must have included this previously - but apparently not - check out Outdoor Art Materials by Sadie Valeri (Sadie J Valeri) in which she reviews her kit for painting outdoors - and a few items she's got her eyes on which are used by other people.
• Whoops! Hackney Council have been at it again - Banksy art used by Blur erased. The weird thing is that despite the zero tolerance for graffiti - even graffiti art which brings fans and visitors to Hackney from all over the world - it still took Hackney years to get round to implementing their zero tolerance policy. Maybe their arts officer could advise about the economic impact art has on its enviroment?
• One of the reasons for my poll this month was reading artists commenting commenting on style including Robert Genn - A methodical pursuit of style
  

Art Business and Marketing

• An interview with Jack Vettriano - about the money side of being an artist Jack Vettriano - including what happens when the company producing your prints goes bust!
  
• Alyson B Stanfield (ArtBiz Blog) had a couple of posts this week about running artist groups. Salon is an interesting word!
  

• Artist Salons: 6 elements for a thriving group, part 1
• Artist Salons: 6 elements for a thriving group, part 2
• She also has a New Twitter book club for artists starts September 14

Art and the Economy / Art Collectors

• Forgery sadly is a problem which we've all probably had to learn a bit about. The Independent had a fascinating article about How a little known welsh artist became Britain's most forged artist.
  

Art Education / Workshops / Tips and techniques

• R Garriot has some tips for How to Check a Canvas for "Square"
• There's an Albert Handell Demo on The Pastel Journal Blog showing how he uses watercolour underpaintings for his pastel work
  
• The website for Digital Camera Photographer of the Year has got several pages of Photography Tips and Techniques
• Photographing people
• Animals and wildlife
• Shooting action
• Going mono
• Better landscapes
  

Art Exhibitions

I've been to two private views and had three posts reviewing exhibitions this week. First I posted twice about the Threadneedle Prize this week

• Exhibition review: The Threadneedle Prize - the shortlist
• Selection for Threadneedle Prize & my shortlist

Plus there's my Exhibition Review: Society of Feline Artists 2009 - Gayle Mason and I are both in the window!

[Update - Denise Laurent (The Painted Cat - on the Easel) and official SOFA photographer has now posted her photos of the exhibition to Flickr and this is a slideshow of work in the SOFA annual exhibition]

Art Galleries and Museums

• There's a new Blog - S+Art The Smithsonian S+udio Arts Blog http://sn.im/SPlusArt

Art History

• Sadie Valeri has been writing about an exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on the French 19th century landscape painter, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - read Exhibit - Corot in California

Book Reviews

• My latest Art Bookshop Review: Waterstones (Covent Garden) will be of interest to all those interested in graphics, design, type, illustration and photography
• There's a Book review: Natural History Painting with the Eden Project by Gayle Mason (Fur in the Paint) on her blog - this is a new book and one I've been watching out for but not seen as yet so I'm interested to see what gayle has to say.

Damien Hirst

I'm not a fan as you may have realised by now.

• First a wonderful fake Damien Hirst blog (found on the art news blog)
• and second, acording to the Independent Damien Hirst in vicious feud with teenage artist over a box of pencils. OMG!!! My regard for this man has now plumbed new depths.
  

Opinion Poll

Two posts this week:

• the first analysing the results of my August Poll - MAM Poll (August) results: the MAIN way you've sold art in the last 12 months - which emphasises how important it is for artists to develop their marketing skills
  

The three most important ways you've sold art in the last 12 months are:

• via traffic to/from your own website and/or blog (21%)
  
• through commissions (21%)
  
• via a gallery - as a gallery artist (15%)

• the second kicking off the MAM Poll (September 2009): What's your style of art? It's got lots of defitinitions of different types of art. It's getting a good response too plus some intersting comments - why not take a look?
  

Websites, webware and blogging

• Do Long Blog Posts Scare Away Readers? by Jonathan Morrow on Copyblogger - and the answer is No. What makes a blog post effective or ineffective is something else......
• This week I came across Darren Rowse's (Problogger) blog post 27 Thoughts On Blogging For The Artist. They're rather good and this post will be added into Blogging - Resources for Artists
  
• Matt Cutts (Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO) investigates Chrome Market Share: One Year Later - for the record here's my pie chart.
  
• I discovered this week that people who search for me by name tend to stay longest on my site - which feels good to me!
  

and finally........

Can I just seek your help please?

If you fancy two free Eurostar tickets to Brussels please read Wanted: an art competition! as I've got to come up with a good way of working out who is the most deserving person - and pretty quickly!

I hasten to add that all these references to Eurostar aren't generating any more free tickets to me. However I will be riding under the English Channel again soon because I booked and paid for our Eurostar tickets to Paris this morning for my trip to France later this month - of which 'more later' as the saying goes!

Now to start reading the Paris blogs............