Making A Mark Awards 2010 - The Contenders

In December last year I invited you to nominate people for the Making A Mark Awards 2009. At the time, a number of you commented that you wished you'd kept a note of impressive blogs or blog projects or images posted on blogs as you noted them during the course of the year - and that you'd need to have a think.

So did I! It's quite an exercise going back and reminding oneself of what had been really good - especially as my memory is not as good as it used to be. I had been keeping a bit of a list of my notions of people who merited an award for some months but had been less than systematic about it

For 2010 I've decided that I'm going to do two things.

1. Keep a draft list of contenders for the MAM Awards from the beginning of the year: I've now got a draft blog post for the Making A Mark Awards set up in Blogger dated 1st December 2010. Into that I'm going to make a note of blogs, blog activities or projects and blog posts which impress me as I come across them throughout the year. That way when I get to December I'll already have most of my shortlist of contenders for the Making A Mark Awards.
2. Invite all of you to nominate contenders throughout the year. As I'm now keeping a note of potential contenders, you also now have the option of alerting me as people/blogs you think might be contenders as you come across them.
   

I'm going to keep a link to this post in a new page for the Making A Mark Awards on this blog (see top of the page - just under the banner) and in the page I've created on my website - see Making A Mark Awards

ACTION: Please leave a comment to alert me as to anybody who you think deserves a nomination on this blog post.

Last year THE MAKING A MARK AWARDS were:

• The Painting Plein Air Plus Prize
• The Travels with a Sketchbook Trophy
• The Going Greener Gong
• The FAQs and Answers Really Useful Medal
• The Make Me Think Gong
• The Best Book by an Art Blogger Blue Ribbon
• The Best Art Blog Project Virtual Challenge Cup
• The Painting a Day Stickability Shield
• “The Moose” - the award for the best animal in an illustrated blog
• The “Tales from the Frontline” Amusing Musings Trophy
• The Most Gorgeous Mouthwatering (MGM) Studio of the Year
• The MAM Award for Best Picture of the Year (Portrait/Figures) on an Art Blog
• The MAM Award for Best Picture of the Year (Place) on an Art Blog
• The MAM Award for Best Picture of the Year on an Art Blog

...and finally -

• The Best Picture of the Year on an Art Blog.

You can read more about them here - The Making A Mark Awards

The Travels with a Sketchbook Trophy

The first person who is getting noted in my new draft MAM Awards Contenders List is Liz Steel (Liz and Borromini) who lives in Sydney Australia. In the autumn of 2009 she spent five weeks in Europe and created a number of travel journals as a result.

Photographs of the sketching kit and sketching with a friend
Photos copyright Liz Steel

A summary of my trip to Europe Sept/Oct 2009 is a major project in sketch journaling. Go and make yourself a hot drink before you settle down to read all of her posts - there's a lot there - and her images are an exemplar in terms of excellent travel journaling and sketching. Her post includes links to:

• sketches and decisions made in preparation which you can see here on flickr
• plus sketches from four weeks travelling around England, Wales and Scotland (in 3 sketchbooks) - lots of maps, castles and cups of tea
  
• a week in Paris in another volume and the journey home.

Alternatively go for the slideshow view in Flickr. Some of these photos were taken at the time but scanned and better quality images appeat later

and finally.....in response to my initial approach about her sketchbooks she has created ebooks on ISSUU which you can see here Europe 09 Sketchbooks

She's also promised to write a post about how she did that last bit which I'll be very interested to read as I've not seen ISSUU used before in this way.

To my mind, Liz and Borrowmini's Europe Sketchbooks project is looking very much like a prime contender for The Travels with a Sketchbook Trophy MAM Award for 2010.

and finally.... Liz has certainly earned herself a place in my blogroll on this blog and Travels with a Sketchbook

Can anybody do better I wonder?