3rd January 2010 - Who's made a mark this week?

Planning for Twenty Ten

There are quote a few of you with recent posts setting out your goals for 2010. Here are just some of them. If you haven't started yet or got one done you may find an approach below which suits you.

It's interesting to note that some people are extending their goals, while others are downscaling having taken on too much previously while others are revisiting activities which they know best represent who they are/what they are good at/ what they enjoy doing.

• Laura Frankstone (Laurelines) was first out of the blocks with 2010, The Plan!* She aims to get her old sketching style back again in 2010 and will also be travelling and continuing to juggle with the way Life has a habit of intervening with even the best paid plans. Laura has also posted links to her past plans which have always been interesting.

Life
copyright Pauls Pertile

• Life in the new year - by Paula Pertile (Drawing a Fine Line) - check out her Life as a Maze drawing (see right). I just love Paula's drawings and their humour! You need to go to Paul's blog to see some of the close-ups of digfferent parts of the maze. Paula leans towards the casual approach - 'making a list of things she'd like to happen' but it seems that this year she's going to 'make things happen'. I'd love to know more!
  

• Moving forward by Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) who plans to produce a body of work in gyotaku - which she is fabulous at!
• Project Twenty-Ten by Justin Hrala (Persistent Pixelation) - an aspiring CG artist
  
• My Art Goals for 2010 by Laurel Neustadter (Laurel Neustadter Illustration)
• Michelle Basic Hendry (Artscapes) has posted her 2010 Goals
• Stimulated by James Gurney's Imaginative Realism, Janice Hook (Fripperee) has devised her goals for 2010 with three specifically related to art - see Down to specifics
• Julie Broom (Julie Broom Art) sees 2010 (as) A year to Experiment, Discover and Enjoy
• Stacy Govett Rowan (Stop and Draw the Roses) has her 2010 Goals
• Here's mine Making A Mark in 2010 - The Plan
  

Looking back to 2009:

• Meanwhile While Lisa Call (Lisa Call) has her 100 Accomplishments for 2009
• plus mine Making A Mark in 2009 - the results

and I liked Jana Bouc's It’s a Beautiful Life! New Year’s Reflections (Not Resolutions)

The Making A Mark Awards

For those of you who were away and might have mixed them here are the links to my end of year review and the Making A Mark awards. The awards posts contain links to the posts where work was nominated for the picture of the year by an art blogger award.

• The Making A Mark Awards 2009 (Part 1)
• The Making A Mark Awards 2009 (Part 2)

Plus my review of blogging and art in 2009

• Reviewing art in 2009 (#1) - the art blog
• Reviewing Art in 2009 (#2) - the art business

Art Blogs

Landscape Art

So we'll kick off with one of my main goals for the year - improving my knowledge of the history and practive of landscape art - hence the new blog - The Art of the Landscape! This is its first post Introducing the The Art of the Landscape Project.

What's involved?

• art history: the development of landscape art - across time and in different countries and cultures;
  
• art movements: different approaches to developing landscape art - in the studio and plein air; from observation and imagination
  
• art instruction: different approaches to teaching and learning about landscape art
  
• artists: learning more about famous landscape artists (past and present); and
  
• drawing and painting: insights into developing your own landscape art; tips and techniques

Introducing the The Art of the Landscape Project

I've already started developing its blogroll - see Landscape Art - check out the blogroll. Some of the artists are new to me and I'm going to be collecting more new blogs which focus on landscape art, reviewing and refining the blogroll as the year progresses. Suggestions of really good landscape blogs to add to it are welcome - on the new blog please.

Plus a new ning community for those who'd like to get involved with my landscape art project in 2010 - also called The Art of the Landscape. I'm inviting a few people to get involved to start with while I get it set up and then will be launching it later this month. Bookmark this link for future reference if you are interested http://landscape-art.ning.com/

Drawing and sketching

• This is 'skine art - for those who use moleskines. You can register to contribute.
  
• Roz Stendahl (Roz Wound Up - winner of the 2009 aking A Mark FAQs and Answers Really Useful Medal) has #13 in her seris about Journaling Superstitions - this is Journaling Superstitions #13: Special Tools Make All the Difference
• This is a computer animation by Charlene Brown (1150 words) of a watercolour painting showing the changing seasons in the Rose Garden at the residence of the Lt. Gov. of British Columbia in Victoria, Canada. Don't forget to show your appreciation and rate it and leave a comment if you like it.
• I'm still posting about France! Château du Plessis

Botanical art

• Helen Webberley (Art and Architecture mainly) in Melbourne has written about
• an Australian botanical artist called Amazing botanical artist II: Marian Ellis Rowan
• and Amazing botanical artist I - Marianne North

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

• Margaret Dyer (Small Pastel Studies by Margaret Dyer) has published a new book Meanderings and Musings, using Blurb, about her blog year.
• Bryan McGurgan (Pastel on Paper) has a couple of useful pages on his blog about pastels and handpaper paper.

Creativity

• There is a new Creative Every Day Challenge = it's described as low pressure. I don't know anything about Leah Piken Kolidas who is running it but apparently this annual challenge has been running for two years. This is the link to associated Flickr Group and the 2010 Creative Every Day Challenge Update & FAQ’s

Painters and Painting

• I'm all geared up to enjoy Tracy Helgeson's (Works by Tracy Helgeson) month long residency at the Vermont Studio Center. She indicates in Off I Go! that her plan is to write on her blog every few days or so about her activities. It was fascinating last time she did this and I'll definitely be watching out for posts.
• Linda Blondheim (Linda Blondheim Art Journal) writes about Looking through the old to discover the new.

There have been some interesting paintings of snow and/or in freezing weather of late. Here's some I noticed

• Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) on the east coast of Newfoundland has been painting with frozen watercolours! See Frozen door to dawn and other recent posts.
• Rene (René PleinAir) has been doing some great snow landscapes in Holland. Deceptively simple and very effective.
  

"Driepaal" De lutte, Holland
(Three poles.) Oil on panel, 24 x 30 cm
copyright Rene Plein Air

• Ed Cooper (Ed Cooper), painting in Suffolk (the home of Constable) produced a painting December Snow

Photography

I hearby declare photography within limits for this post each week! Starting off with Anita Murphy who has started a new blog on New Year's Day A Photo A Day

This is where I confess I very nearly started two new blogs on New Year's Day. The other one would have been just a photograph each day - but NOT a photo taken each day I hasten to add. I just really like some of my photos!

Portraiture

• You can see the portraits from Karin Jurick's Year End Challenge - Swapping 180 Portraits at Different Strokes from Different Folks here as videos on YouTube
  here here and here - it's absolutely fascinating as you see the photo supplied and then the painting which resulted. I also noticed how much effort people took to provide a good photo to paint from this year - so well done to all who did. I was VERY impressed with some of the portraits which resulted. What a shame four people who signed up did not complete the challenge. I'd very much caution against signing up for this challenge at the end of this year unless you are absolutely going to make sure you complete your assignment by 31st December (see Bravo! as to the reason why)
  
• Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) wrote nice words about
  
• the Different Strokes From Different Folks Year End Portrait Swap
• and Adebanji Alade

Sculpture

• Kelly Borsheim (Fine Art by Kelly Borsheim) records the process of creating a marble sculpture:
• Marble Carving Gymnast
• Shimmering Sugar Stone
• Marble Sculpture Process
• and Carving Stone

Art Business and Marketing

• When Businesses Move Out, Art Moves In includes reference to The Art in Storefronts initiative, introduced in San Francisco.
• Why do people buy art? Lisa Call has some answers in Buying Art

Art and the Economy / Art Collectors

• The top 10 Art Sales by value in 2009 provided by Bloomberg. I make it pre-20th century = 3; 20th century (pre 1950) = 6; 20th century (post 1950) = 1

Art Competitions and Art Societies

• a review of School for Saatchi - where a "found" piece won the competition and ended up in The Hermitage
• Create your own Eustace Tilley by 11:59 P.M. on January 18, 2010, for a chance to win and be featured in an online slide show curated by The New Yorker’s art editor, Françoise Mouly. Read more
  

Art Exhibitions and art fairs

Artist Bloggers

Sweet Light of Day by Tracy Helgeson
currently showing at The Harrison Gallery, MA

• Tracy Helgeson (Works by Tracy Helgeson) has a Solo Show all this month at The Harrison Gallery, Williamstown, MA. You can see more artwork on the gallery's website. The gallery very sensibly can make high resolution images available to those interested in making a purchase. Does your gallery do this?
• remember you can notify me if you have a solo show or are in a major exhibition.
  

Other exhibitions

• The Daily Telegraph lists the The key art exhibitions of 2010 in the UK

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

Art School Blogs

I didn't know that the The Heatherley School of Fine Art had a blog - of the same name. It's a wonder more art schools don't do the same thing. It might be a good idea if they said a bit more about their actual courses.

Does anybody know of any more art school blogs which I could add in to Art Schools in the UK - Resources for Artists?

Workshops

Let me know if you're posting your workshop schedules for 2010. If I'm acquainted with your work and you 'make the grade' I'll be happy to post a link to them here (and yes that is a coded message!). It's good to see some artists creating dedicated blogs for their teaching activities.

• Pastel artist Karen Margulis has a dedicated blog for her Pastel Classes and workshops - two recent posts are 'Everything Pastel' One Day Introduction to Pastel Workshop plus Workshop and Class Schedule for Winter/Spring 2010.

Tips and techniques

• Linda Blondheim (Linda Blondheim Art Journal - writes about using a design kit
• Benoit Phillippe (My French Easel) has 10 ways to improve your watercolours with a ruler. Earlier last month he'd also had a useful post with My exhibition kit. So I looked back through his blog and came across this post which I've seen anywhere on the internet before Canvas formats provides details about the size of canvas formats in France and compares the format of Landscape, Portrait and Seascape
• Lynn Chapman (An Illustrator's Life For Me!) tells us all about Sketch-Tinting Tricks with Photoshop
• Michael Chesley Johnson writes about how to give paintings a Sense of Scale

Art History / Copyright

• The Philosopher's Zone, a blog by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National - has a podcast and transcript of a debate about Forging ahead - the philosophy of authenticity, fakes and forgers

Art Studios

Three posts about studios this week:

• Lisa Call - winner of the Maaking A Mark awards for MGM Studio of the Year - wrote about The Magic of Completion on MakeBigArt.com Empowering Artists
• Robert Genn highlighted an unusual arrangement for Sharing Studio Spaces
• Astrid Volquardsen (Pastell-Blog) wrote aboiut her new studio for her work in soft pastels - see My studio - Mein Atelier

Art Supplies

• Two new coloured pencil opinion polls for 2010 - and gosh have all been busy voting already. I only posted this on Friday and 30 people have already recorded their current favourite brand of artist grade coloured pencil.
• This is my post on Making A Mark Reviews highlighting Product Review: Pastels by Bryan McGurgan
• My jaw dropped when I read this post Growing like Topsy on Cennini on Painting. It's an amazing story! You can check out the Studio Products website which is a source for hard-to-find art materials. They're online suppliers only and I've added their link into Art Supplies in the USA - Resources for Artists . The website also includes recipes and formulas for painting mediums, glues, glazes and waxes that make paintings stand out in a gallery.
• Laura Frankstone again on Art supplies I loved in 2009!

Book reviews

• My updated Book review - Taking a Line for a Walk: 1100 Miles on Foot, Le Havre to Rome

Colour

• An old post - but still a good one on the Colour Lovers blog Unusual colour wheels found in life and art
• Michael Chesley Johnson (A Plein Air Painter's Blog) wrotes about The Dark Side: Tonalism v. Colorism
• The Curious Case of Cobalts on Cennini on Painting

Opinion Poll

• I'll be writing about the December opinion poll tomorrow.
  

Websites, webware and blogging

• Duane Keiser (A 1000 small paintings) maintains his 'first with most things' reputation and now has an iPhone app
  
• Yesterday I posted a Techie: How to create a top 10 list of your blog posts
• How to Improve the Position of your Website in Yahoo! Search Results - from the Yahoo help pages
  
• watch out for islate.com - here are a couple of articles from
  
• the Guardian Steve Jobs: Here's another feather in his iHat and
  
• Wired News Apple Bought iSlate.com — Perhaps for a Tablet? The latter gets even more excited in Predict Our Apple Tablet Coverage, Win an Apple Tablet which reveals a slight obsession!
  

and finally........

For all of you who got an iphone or ipodtouch for Christmas (and that seems to be an awful lot of you!) The Guardian also has an interesting article about Our top 30 apps for the arts. In 30 top apps from Shakespeare to South Park Ajesh Patalay picks the best apps out there on the web for culture vultures

Will you be like David Hockney in 2010 - with the brushes app loaded and emailing new work to your friends as you make it?