11th April 2010 - Who's made a mark this week?

Profile of Geneva (2009)
oil on board
by Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco
accepted for the BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2010
copyright the artist/used with permission

If your work has been accepted into the BP Portrait Award 2010 you'll have had a letter by now. I've got my draft blog post lined up for the formal announcement later this month!

In the meantime many congratulations to Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco (Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco - News ) - who had the Best Breakfast ever when she found that" Geneva" had been accepted for the exhibiion. She writes about painting this portrait in Profile portraits

Art Blogs

Congratulations also to:

• Lisa Call (Lisa Call - Contemporary Textile Art) - who is the first person I've congratulated on Celebrating Five Years of Blogging!
• The second person is Pete Scully who recently announced the second anniversary of petescully.com which, including the old blog, means five years of blogging since he started. He's also posted his 1,000th post!

Drawing and sketching

• Andrea Joseph (andrea joseph's sketchblog) writes loving about her blog as somewhere i can warm my bones while she juggles the day job and her aspirations to becoming a full time professional illustrator.
  Sharing and learning starts with Paul Heaston's sketches of Portland
• I do like the way Jeanette Jobson's artwork is becoming more about the motifs of the place where she lives - see the latest development in Pebble study

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

• The Pastel Society has a new website (at last!) and it's currently showing some of the works from the Annual Exhibition 2010 which is currently on at the Mall galleries. Nice big images and a contemporary feel which is a big improvement - although I confess the font size is a challenge for my eyes!

Cartoons and Fantasy Art

• Dilbert's Mashups - a creative approach to collaborative cartooning
  

Landscape

One of the best art experiences I've ever had was to be taken into the Hall of Nine in the Town Hall in Sienna and see the frescos painted on Good and Bad Government painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the fifteenth century. So it was a real pleasure this week to write about Ambrogio Lorenzetti - the first panorama

• I also observed this week that you can sometimes find a landscape in odd places - see Desert sandhills and an elephant. Lesley Hawes sent me a link to a a group of Flickr photos called "Appearances Can Be Deceiving" which she's set up for similar 'odd' landscapes.
• Deborah Secor has posted Chapter 9 Sunrise, Sunset in her blog book Landscape Painting in Pastels
• I've been very taken with how finding somewhere to draw for the Virtual Paintout is so much like finding a 'view' in real life. Here's my view of Old Volcanoes in Gran Canaria

The Virtual Paintout in April - my contribution
coloured pencils on Saunders Waterford HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Painters and Painting

• Robert Genn had an entertaining and informative post with Fun with retreads
• Helen Ferguson Crawford is an interesting painter who likes providing progress shots

Art Business and Marketing

• Christine Kane (Christine Kane's Blog) had a post about You Might Need to Become an Imperfectionist if… which struck chords (as in "Taadaa") with some of you. It's an expansion on one of The 9 Skills Every Woman Should Master
• Happy New (Financial) Year - Day One, routines by Tina Mammoser the Cycling Artist
  

Art and the Economy / Art Collectors

• Protect Your Art With More Than a Handshake by Paul Sullivan deals with issues of concern to art collectors and how galleries can and do rip off both them and their art
  

Art Competitions and Art Societies

• On Friday I posted details of The Jerwood Drawing Prize - how to enter. This is probably the premier drawing prize in the UK so all those in the UK who are serious about their drawing should take a look.
  
• Digital Camera Photographer of the Year is one of the world's biggest photography competitions, attracting more than 100,000 entries in 2009. This year's competition is now open and you can find details of how to enter Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2010
  

Art Galleries, Museums and Exhibitions

This week The Art Newspaper published its annual survey and analysis of the exhibitions and visitors to the major art museums and galleries of the world.

My post on Thursday identified and recast the Top 30 art galleries and museums in 2009 into a summary by major city. This identifies very clearly that London is streets ahead of any other major city in the world terms of the quantity and quality of the art on offer. I know it was good - but I now feel very lucky to live here and have all of it between two and three miles to the west of the desk where I sit writing this blog post!
Major museums

• On Tuesday I posted my review of the new exhibition of Henry Moore's graphic works - Henry Moore Deluxe: Books Prints & Portfolios which is a 'must see' for all fine art printmakers and those interested in graphic arts
  
• In New York the Acquavella Galleries have an exhibition about the artwork collected by Robert and Ethel Skull - Robert & Ethel Scull: Portrait of a Collection This link allows you to view a sample of paintings by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and others. Number 8 is an image of the plaster cast by George Segal of "Portrait of Robert and Ethel Scull," 1965. (Oil on canvas, plaster, wood chair with cloth, 96 x 72 x 72 inches. Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan). Through the wonders of the Internet, you can read the 1966 Time article about the creation of this work Sculpture: The Casting of Ethel Scull (although I confess I did notice the date was April 1st and I'm always wary of article published on that date!) You can also read the New York Times review of this exhibition Showing a Couple’s Eye for Art (and Money)
  
• The Annual Exhibition of the Pastel Society opened last week at the Mall Galleries and closes next Saturday 17th April. I've not got to it due to a bad cold last week.
  
• The Real Van Gogh Exhibition t the Royal Academy will close on 18th April. As a reminder of what you can see I posted a seasonal tribute in The Real Van Gogh - Orchards and Blossom
• This is an NYTimes Slide Show: Cartier-Bresson’s Modern Century of the new exhibition, opening TODAY, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York - see Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century April 11–June 28, 2010 and this interactive guide to the exhibition in The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor
  
• It's always good to see serious London art galleries giving an exhibition to natural history artists. Animal and bird artists might be interested in Harriet Bane Closer to Home at the Jonathan Cooper Park Walk Gallery between 22 April - 8 May. The gallery was established in 1988 and specialises in botanical, figurative, photography and wildlife and sporting art. I suggested this gallery to Susan Angharad Williams as as a good one for her work and I was really pleased when she was accepted as agallery artist and had an exhibition with them last year. The Gallery is taking Susan's work to Art Chicago, The International Fair of Contemporary and Modern Art (April 30 - May 3 2010) along with another one of the gallery's figurative artists featured on this blog, former BP Portrait Award Winner Craig Wylie.
  

Artist Bloggers

• Enrique Flores (Enrique Flores) is having an exhibition of his watercolour sketchbooks of Algeria in Visiones be Argelia from 14th April to 31st May at the Instituto Cervantes de Argel at 9, Rue Khelifa Boukhalfa, Argel 16000

Regional Guides to Art Activities
This week a new listing - and one which I've tried to highlight previously. It seems as if it's now beginning to tajke off so do send me links to any more similar listings that you find as I'm going to create a compendium.

• The LA Art Guide - www.laartguide.net - is a comprehensive online resource guide to art shows, events, artists, galleries, museums, art centers, art associations, art classes, workshops, and art businesses in Los Angeles and worldwide.
• The Slate art Guide provides listings for art activities in the Toronto area of Canada

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

Twittering Art Education
I don't quite know why it's taken me so long to find it, especially since I'm an alumni, but I've finally come across the Twitter account for the University of the Arts in London - which I recommend and you can find at http://twitter.com/ArtsLondon

Workbooks

• Irene Brady (Nature Drawing with Irene Brady) has published her workbook for Drawing Eagles, Hawks and Owls as a 'free to download' pdf file
  
• The Pastel Society UK Summer School will be held at Alderton Village Hall, Alderton, Nr.Tewkesbury Gloucestershire Thurs 12, Fri 13 & Sat 14 August 2010 10.30am - 4.30pm. Tutors are Roger Dellar, Moira Huntley and Felicity House. Download PDF for a booking form and further information
  

Workshops

• Cathy Gatland ( A Sketch in Time) has more posts from her Hazel Soan workshop which are recommended. See:

• Hazel Soan Workshop Day Three - which is all about painting people in watercolour
  

"to make figures with life... let the watercolours run together... watercolour is beautiful... the reference is just a guide... bad photographs make good paintings... the secret is to make your colour merge..."

• Hazel Soan Workshop Day Four - which is all about painting animals in watercolour

• for those taken with the demos this is a link to Hazel Soan's website. I've travelled on painting holidays with Spencer Scott before - they are very expensive but they also well organised and always have excellent tutors.
  

• Please note: I've started adding in tutors to an information website based on warm and appreciative blog posts by their students! If you've got an appreciative student blogging about your workshops please send me a link!
  

Art History

• Sharon Fitzgerald lectures and blogs about art history in The Art History Blog
  
• British Library acquires "uniquely visual" archive of writer and illustrator Mervyn Peake - check out the wonderful graphic illustrations

Art Supplies

This week I've been focusing on The buying habits of fine artists with the publication of the results of two long-running surveys. The following posts highlight the similarities and differences between where a sample of fine artists in the UK and USA choose to buy most of their art supplies

• The buying habits of fine artists - in the USA
• The buying habits of fine artists - in the UK

Squidoo awarded me a purple star (for excellence) last week for my information site My Favourite Art Shops - Resources for Artists. I think the extensive slideshows helped! ;)

Colour

• Have you ever wondered how colours get names? Try this Color Name Survey and find out how it's not that easy! You can find out more about it in this blog post Color Name Survey

Copyright

When corporations weaponize copyright to use against civilians, they use artists as human shields #debill
Cory doctorow

This week has been pretty momentous for those of us intersted in and concerned with the rights of visual artists. I'm probably going to repeat this section as a separate post next week as it's so important. I'm still unclear what's now happening re orphan works.

• In the UK we had The farce of the Digital Economy Bill being rushed through its second and third reading and committee stage in parliament in a few hours. This is a process which would usually be allocated 20 days or so in the Paliamentary schedules. The only good bit about it is that Clause 43 relating to orphan works was withdrawn due to the campaiging of the photographers and authors (Where were the artists?)
  
• You can see who voted no on the Digital Economy Bill - these are the people we have to thank that there is still life left in the orphan works debate
  
• A number of people are posting about how the way the Parliamentary debate was conducted has now changed the way they are going to vote in the election. Here's one of them.
  
• The farce continues over in the USA. The New York Times reports that Visual Artists to Sue Google Over Vast Library Project

On Wednesday, the American Society of Media Photographers and other groups representing visual artists plan to file a class-action lawsuit against Google, asserting that the company’s efforts to digitize millions of books from libraries amount to large-scale infringement of their copyrights.

• An ignorant and patronising man at SmartPlanet http://bit.ly/9O0Xhw used an illustrator's image for a blog post without consent and the illustrators 'bit back'. It needs to happen more.
• This is What to Do When Your Artwork is Used Without Your Permission

Opinion Poll

• the early results on the opinion poll to find out What types of art book do you like best? are absolutely riveting - well they are to me! Judging by the results compared to what's being offered by the major art publishers are missing a major opportunity waiting to be satisfied - 'how to' books at an advanced level for those who have grown out of the typical books which are produced as fodder for the ever present newbies.
  
• Could it be that this opportunity might get addressed by artists publishing their own ebooks for what is perceived to be a 'minority interest'?
  
• Might it be possible that drafts of art instruction books will not get 'dumbed down' in future?
  
• In the meantime - if you're looking for your more advanced 'how to' books relating to watercolour painting try checking out The Best Books about Watercolour Painting. I'm having a really lovely time investigating all the wonderful recommendations which are coming in for books about watercolour painting which you want to recommend. Some of them are absolutely AMAZING and I've never seen them before - but they are available to order online (although you might need to buy a used copy). If you have an opinion and would like to recommend a book please leave your recommendations as a comment on this blog post Which are the best art books about watercolour painting?. Many thanks to all those who have sent in recommendations.
  

Websites, webware, social networks and blogging

Tina Mammoser (The Cycling Artist) had a post about her favourite techy tools - see Happy New (Financial) Year - Day five, techy tools

New software

• This is the microsoft office 10 beta page - and, according to CNet Newsthere's going to be a free starter version - a sort of stripped down version to replace Works - see Microsoft's big gamble with free Office. I think they've twigged that lots of us don't need all the funtionality of Office and are happy using online free webware! Could they be worried about what the future sales of Office might look like?
• ....and this is Welcome to the new Office 2011 User Experience from Mac Mojo: The Office for Mac Team Blog. It has a Macribbon - but no info re release dates
• Twitter has reported on the State of Twitter Spam and has acquired tweetie for the iphone
  

Tweetie will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and made free (currently $2.99) in the iTunes AppStore in the coming weeks

The Internet

• Mozilla’s Q1 2010 Analyst Report – State of the Internet is the first ever metrics report from Mozilla - I guess because Chrome continues to grow in popularity. Firefox market share continues to be strongest in Europe. In one recent study, they found that the typical user has between 2 and 3 tabs open at any one time with the maximum being over 600 tabs! I use waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than 2 or 3! I'd never get any of my blog posts written if I didn't!
  

Social networking

• Linda Blondheim highlighted this post on Mashable about business apps for Facebook
  

and finally........

This had me smiling from ear to ear - some of you may recognise yourselves in this post Runners, Watchers, and Squatters by Scott Adams on his Dilbert blog

PS Blogging is going to be really peculiar for the next couple of weeks as I'm attending a Planning Enquiry Hearing in a formal capacity. This just happens to start on the same day as the events relating to the Silver Jubilee Exhibition for the Annual Society of Botanical Artists (in which I have two works). Please excuse what I'm expecting will be some odd posting as I'm going to be short on time - I'm thinking of doing some recycling of old posts which won't be familiar to many of you.