24th January 2010 - Who's made a mark this week?

The best thing for me this week - by far - being able to attend the press preview for the new Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts on Tuesday.

The worst thing was when I came to process my photographs and realised that my camera's SD card had malfunctioned!

The next best thing was when I realised I was being incredibly dumb about how my card saved image records!!!

They were there all the time............

Self-portrait as an artist (January 1888)
oil on canvas, 65.5 x 50.5cm
Van Gogh Museum
(Letter 626)

Here’s an impression of mine, which is the result of a portrait that I painted in the mirror, and which Theo has: a pink-grey face with green eyes, ash-coloured hair, wrinkles in forehead and around the mouth, stiffly wooden, a very red beard, quite unkempt and sad, but the lips are full, a blue smock of coarse linen, and a palette with lemon yellow, vermilion, Veronese green, cobalt blue, in short all the colours, except of the orange beard, on the palette, the only whole colours, though. The figure against a grey-white wall.
(Letter 626)

I've now got an awful lot of photos of the works on display and the letters.

• This post The Real Van Gogh at the Royal Academy introduces the exhibition - and I do recommend that you buy tickets early if you want a choice of date and don't want to queue for the limited number of tickets which are available on a daily basis. Clue - the lunchtime lectures were all sold out before the exhibition had even opened.
• Today's post over on The Art of the Landscape is all about Van Gogh's Palette 1882
• Before he became an artist Van Gogh lived for three years in London - you can see the places connected to him in A map of Van Gogh's London
• I also posted my post exhibition sketch over on Travels with a Sketchbook - see Sketching at the RA - Friends Room #6

Sketching at the RA - Friends Room #6
8" x 10", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Art Blogs

Art of the Landscape

One of the interesting spin-offs from the Art of the landscape project are all the new blogs I'm picking up on. The more interesting/more frequent posters are going straight to the blogroll of The Art of the Landscape
Posts on my new blog this week included:

• How to make landscape art is a list of what I hope will be future posts on the blog. I'm also referencing posts by other people in developing this resource. If anybody has past blog posts which might be helpful drop me a line or leave a comment on this post.
  
• Johan Christian Dahl (1788-1857) - I keep finding out about new artists since taking up this new project. We're developing a lot of links to websites about artists over in the Art of the Landscape ning community.
  
• Landscape into Art by Kenneth Clark - which is one of the seminal books about landscape art. This post gives you a link to where you can read it online
• The Landscape Genre within Modernist Photography

I'm introducing people slowly to the new ning community so please bear with me if you've not yet had your application approved.

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

• Thanks to Casey Klahn (The Colorist) for highlighting Pastel News. It features pastel artists - the most recent example being Featured Pastel Artist: Liz Haywood-Sullivan
• Other pastel blogs I've come across recently which are new to me include:
• Robert Fafond's Mark and Remark - I'm liking his pastel drawings of winter and fields
  
• Artists in Pastel. The site features pastel artists according to a template format. The aim appears to be a directory of pastel artists - which is laudable - although I did not that all the artists seem to be one side of the pond at the moment Somebody sent me this link - and I owe them an aplogy as I failed to make a note of who that was!
  
• The Pastel Guild This is the home of the Pastel Guild of Europe which was set up last year following an initiative by some of the pastel artists on Wet Canvas. It has three levels of membership.

Printmaking

• I think I'm right in saying that the inspiration for Martin's print - in Ein Ausflug in die Toskana on Edition Handdruck started as a sketch by Robyn (Have Dogs Will Travel) in Tuscany

Nature Art

• If you follow me on Twitter I do take a look at your websites. Which is how I came to find the blog Oz Nature Artists - who also have a fan page on Facebook and a Twitter account which tweets their posts. This is a group blog involving
• Helen Akerstrom - HELEN AKERSTROM
• Monkey Paw Gallery - LIZ SIMRAJH
• Wild Australian Art - PETER BROWN
• Wildlife and Portrait Artist - PATRICK HEDGES
• Julie's Art - JULIE STEPHENS
• Wildlife Portraits - GERALDINE SIMMONS
• Drawn Wild - TERRY JACKSON
• Rodney's Art - RODNEY WELLS
• Oz Wildlife Art - LESLEY SMITHERINGALE

Art Business and Marketing

• This week I've been looking back at the archives of Blogs of Note - the curatorial blog run by the Blogger Team. If you get listed on this your blog gets a massive boost in traffic. I began to realise that I couldn't tell which were the art ones from the titles of the blogs. Just a thought..........
• for Amerian artists, Art Calender has a timely Filing Your 2009 Taxes: Updates on Credits, Deductions, Exemptions and Benefits at a Glance
• Joanne Mattera (Joanne Mattera Art Blog) responds to a question often asked Marketing Mondays: "How Do I Get a Curator to Look at My Work?"
• for those thinking of becoming an illustrator, Lynne Chapman's post Royalties and Advances on An Illustrator's Life For Me! will be of interest - a long post and a recommended read
  
• Seth Godin reminds us about The ubiquity of competition
  
• Micah R. Condon (of an online art gallery at DailyPainters.com) has a new art marketing site, ArtIsBroken and kicks off with an 'in your face' post Is your art broken? Good news and bad news for artists, and the simple new rules of art marketing. I think it makes a lot of sound points. I think the only thing I'd quibble with is the title for the website which although ace at attention grabbing isn't very uplifting!
  

I've looked at a couple thousand art blogs over the last three years, and most of them were broken. Most likely, the way you produce and sell your art are outdated and ineffective. If your art is not selling well, as seems to be the case with most artists, then your art is broken, or your marketing is broken, or more likely both are broken.

• I suggest you take a look at the next two posts too - although I am wondering why there haven't been any more..............
  

• What do Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs really mean for artists - opportunity, distraction or both? and
  

• Why don't 'regular people' or 'non artists' spend money on art?

most of your potential customers have no idea why your images are any better or more expensive than similar images.

Art and the Economy / Art Collectors

• Jacqueline Grescott of the Washington Post reported this week on The Nationals Arts Index, a new survey by Americans for the Arts, paints a troubling picture for arts organizations. In the last 10 years the number of arts organisations have increased while the number of people attending arts events has declined

Attendance at art museums was down 13 percent from 2003 to 2008, the index found, while audiences at popular music events were down 6 percent. More people are taking classes in knitting and ceramics

• Germaine Greer on Why the world doesn't need an Annie Warhol or a Francine Bacon - it makes for an uncomfortable read
  

Art Competitions and Art Societies

• My post about How to enter the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition 2010 has already generated come comments from people who are now thinking about entering. It's a real kudos point for the CV if you get in!
  

Art Exhibitions and art fairs

• Art galleries should think big writes Jonathan Jones in his Guardian blog. With one-off exhibitions and no master plan, our national institutions tell us little about the wider story of art.....

it seems to be expected that if an exhibition does more or less what it says on the tin, and gets a reasonable attendance, it deserves a soft ride from the critics.......if I see a show that is fine on its own terms but totally myopic about the larger history of art and humanity – well, I'll continue to say so.

• ...which is interesting given that on the same day I posted my Exhibition review of Turner and the Masters at Tate Britain. I'm actually very glad I saw this exhibition after I'd done my initial research around the timeline for the development of landscape art. I'm not sure some other people would have appreciated the exhibition as much as possible without that knowledge. An exhibition which references quite so much of art history probably needs a bit more explanation for the unintiated. If you take a look at this post you'll be able to judge how good my sketch is as a copy of Turner's Palestrina.

Palestrina (after Turner) by me!
8 x 10", pencil and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook
Katherine Tyrrell

Art Education / workshops

• If you can get to London you can get a place in the Pastel Society Workshops 2010

Art History

• The New York Times article Cultural Riches Turn to Rubble in Haiti Quake reminds us that in the midst of the utter devastation and horrendous loss of life in Haiti is the loss of a significant cultural heritage. The Episcopal Church’s Holy Trinity Cathedral is known for its murals of Bible stories with all black figures - in a country which can claim the honour of being the first independent black state. This a link to a pdf document (In French) about Le fresque de la Cathédrale Ste Trinité. It makes one realise that the process of aid and reconstruction goes way beyond the immediate difficulties even if those must be of paramount importance right now.
  

“The dead are dead, we know that. But if you don’t have the memory of the past, the rest of us can’t continue living.”

Art Studios

• Meet the Winners of Art Calender's Our Studio Makeover Contest

Art Supplies

• Oz Nature Artists have a great post What is Graphite? which is a very nice overview of graphite products and what you can do with them and useful tools for working with graphite. This was first posted by Lesley Smitheringale on her blog Oz Wildlife Art
• Jackson's Art Materials Blog commented on the New Saunders Waterford HIGH WHITE watercolour paper. You can find out more about this new high white paper on the Saunders Waterford website
• Robyn (Have Dogs will Travel) wrote in December about Gouache on Terraskin stone paper

Book reviews

• Making A Mark reviews had two posts about botanical art books this week
• The Art of Botanical Painting - out of print!!! is my response to the staggering news that this excellent book is out of print and Harper Collins have no plans for a reprint! Shame!
  
• New botanical art books for 2010 is about four new botanical art books which are due to publish in the first jalf of 2010 - and suggests that the botancial art market is actually a lot healthier than some may think.
• Cathy Johnson (The Quicksilver Workaholic) is Really pleased with my newest North Light book...

Colour

• I knew James Gurney had another book on the go and this week he announced the topic on his blog. It's called Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter and you can find out more about it in Color and Light Book and More About the New Book. For those of you voted on the cover design the Cover Poll Results results are in and there was no doubt as to which was the winner.
• He's also posted recentlu about a Color Isolator
• This is a post from a colourman about paint colours of the past - such a shame these are colours for buildings and not paintings!

Opinion Poll

• Don't forget to vote in the January Making A Mark Opinion Poll if you haven't already. At the moment 13% of you have owned up to having made no archive of your images! Are there any more of you out there? The poll is in the right hand column - under blog followers widget
  

and finally........

From 29 January until 14 March 2010 British artist Michael Landy intends to transform the South London Gallery into a 600m³ container for the disposal of works of art. Art Bin will gradually fill up over the six week course of the exhibition to create ’a monument to creative failure’. Click here to apply to dispose of art works in Art Bin,

He invited some celebraities to contribute to get the project started - read about this in

My week: Michael Landy

The artist considers his most ambitious work yet – junking the works of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin