18th April 2010 - Who's made a mark this week?

Julian Merrow Smith's new book about A Postcard from Provence is about to publish and orders are now being taken - mine went in straight away!  I was so pleased to see it includes some old favourites

148 selected paintings—evenly divided between still life and landscape—sourced from all five years' of the project and laid out in a notional year.

Postcard from Provence has featured in 'who's made a mark this week' a lot in the last four years or so.  For people who haven't read my posts before here's a small sample of my own personal back catalogue of individual posts about this now famous blog!

• Postcard from Provence (February 2006)
• Postcard from Provence: two years on (February 2007)
• The 1,000th Postcard from Provence (October 2008)

One of my very favourite blogs - and probably the reason why I started getting into blogging - is "Postcard from Provence", a diary in paintings.  Julian Merrow-Smith has lived in Provence for the last 8 years or so in a tiny village called Crillon le Brave. He describes his blog as

an ongoing project involving painting and posting a small oil painting, mostly daily, in which I try to reflect the changing seasons and light of my adoptive home in Provence.

Art Blogs

Botanical Art
There have been a lot of posts this week about botanical art - because the Society of Botanical artists are in town with their Silver Jubilee Exhibition.  Here are mine.

• My Botanical Art Week starts
• EXHIBITION: Society of Botanical Artists 2010 #1
• A Making A Mark Interview with Mary Ann Scott
• The Virtual Field Herbarium

Plus there will be more next week, there are more in Book Reviews and this is from UKCPS news

• Janie Pirie awarded Certificate of Botanical Merit.  These certificates are not handed out lightly so that's a big bonus fr Janie whose work looked even better than last year.  I'll be writing more about coloured pencil artists tomorrow.

I had a good look around at the exhibition and there were some beautiful pieces of work in coloured pencil. We really are growing as more and more people realise that you can ‘paint’ with pencils and they have a wonderful quality and a depth of colour that can bring a piece of work to life. Out of the 700 paintings hung 59 of them were coloured pencil only and several others were a mixture of coloured pencil and another medium.

Cydonia oblonga 'Vranja' - Quince
by Janie Pirie SBA, UKCPS, GM
awarded a Certificate of Botanical Merit
by the Society of Botanical Artists

Drawing and sketching

• I was at Kew Gardens on Monday walking and sketching - amidst peacocks, palms and magnolias

Outside the Orangery

11" x 8", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in large Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

• a major update for coloured pencil artists in the USA in the CPSA's recent blog post CPSA – New Things Happening - including a new artists store and.......

Lightfastness Workbook Vol 6 - Version 6 of our Lightfastness Workbook will be available for purchase as of May 1st. This book is available only to CPSA Members.

• I smiled in sympathy with Jeanette Jobson and her recent post The finishing point - we've all been there!

Illustration

Illustrators seem to be good at creating a critical mass through like minded souls getting together is likely to benefit all involved.

• This is the BLOGZINE of CBIG - The Children's Book Illustrators Group - it's a showcase for member illustrations and their industry related good news.

The Children's Book Illustrators Group, began in 1987 by a group of Brooklyn children's book illustrators to share publishing information and experiences. In it's current incarnation CBIG is a group of mainly NYC area illustrators and author/illustrators, neophytes to published pros, in children's publishing and related fields.

• This is The Dust of Everyday Life - a blog for members of the Picture Book Artists Association
• This is a good idea.  prints and posters for children is a new blog with a theme in which  owners and illustrators Jennifer Thermes (Art, Words, Life) and Julie Fortenbury (Julie Fortenbury) don't just highlight their own prints of their illustrations, they also highlight other illustrators and provide links to where their work can be bought (eg on etsy).

Landscape

• Landscape Painting in Pastels - Chapter 10 - Night which highlights the need to make good use of contrast, and highlights the use of strong darks and strong lights
• On Monday I asked What's your favourite place to paint?.  I'm planning on developing an inventory or gazeteer of good places to paint.
• On the Art of the Landscape I featured two British painters
• You too can paint a Turner Sunset... is about one of the potentially positive benefits of the ash plume from the Icelandic volcano which has grounded virtually all air traffic in Europe for at least three days.
• Pictures of Britain by David Gentleman is about a popular contemporary illustrator/artist who has work in the Tate

Photography

• The Observer today has a areally fascinating article about Why street photography is facing a moment of truth

We insist on the right to privacy and, simultaneously, snap anything and everyone we see and everything we do – in public and in private – on mobile phones and digital cameras.In one way, then, we are all street photographers now, but we are also the most-photographed and filmed global population ever. In Britain, our city centres and public buildings are monitored 24/7 by surveillance cameras, while security cameras track us in car parks, supermarkets, football stadiums, hotels and as we enter and leave our places of work

• On Flickr, there is a site called HCSP – Hardcore Street Photography – that has nearly 36,000 members. It has a posting limit of two photographs per week.  There are some  great images in members' favourites

Printmaking

• The Times has an article about how The screen-print makes its mark again
• Clive Christy's blog Art and the Aesthete has a very nice post about Gertrude Hermes (1901-1983) who was a was a printmaker and painter-draughtsman.  You can also find other posts about British Printmakers while these are posts about people who are or were members of the Society of Wood Engravers. I also loved the images in this post about William Giles (1872-1939) Revisited
• A new printmaking blog which I came across this week Adventures in the Print Trade

Art Business and Marketing

• This is the website of Hire an Illustrator which has a regular spotlight feature.  Many try and few do it as well as this.
• Tina Mammoser (The Cycling Artist) has a useful post about packaging artwork (canvases).

Art Competitions and Art Societies

• On Wednesday, I dashed into town after the Planning Hearing finished and went to see The Pastel Society - Annual Exhibition 2010 which I'd missed getting to the previous week because of my cold.

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

Workshops

• On Tuesday I reprised Egg Tempera in three steps - which references three very detailed posts I did back in 2007 as a result of a workshop I did at the Victoria & Albert Museum

Tips and techniques

• Back to the Stations

Art fairs

• Tina Mammoser (The Cycling Artist) has a post about art fairs

Art Forums

• I was sent into a bit of a temporary tailspin this week by Ning's announcement that it's going to pull out of the provision of free sites.  Techcrunch was the most informative Ning’s Bubble Bursts: No More Free Networks, Cuts 40% Of Staff.  So I now need to find a new home for all my groups unless Ning decides that the departing hordes might not do its page rank any good (which is an absolute certainty!).  I have to say that I am totally disgusted by the way Ning has totally failed to contact any of its Ning Network Creators direct and only posted on the Creators Network blog (see Ning Update) which means that a lot of people who are not members and others who don't read the blog will not know what's happening.  I'll be writing more next week about the alternatives that've come up with. 

As part of this change, we’ll be phasing out our free service.  On May 4, 2010, we will share with you all of the details of our new offering, including features and price points, through a series of blog posts, emails, and conference calls.
Ning Update: Rolling Out Full Details May 4th

• Easel Space is a new website/forum for artists with a groups facility.  It has potential but as with all such ventures is looking to build numbers if it's going to become a sustainable venture.

Art Galleries, Museums and Exhibitions

Major museums

• This is the Museums at Night blog of which more on this blog before the middle of May.  This is 1 month to go! An honest look at how the Museums at Night campaign is going
• Add Culture24 to your Twitter List - it's just won the 'long lived' award in the Museums and the Web 2010 'Best of the Web' awards!
• This is really great - a slideshow on YouTube of Every Painting in the MoMA on 10 April 2010 in just over two minutes.  I wanted a 'slow down' button! I wonder when other museums will begin to realise that photography in museums could be the single biggest and best way of enhancing their visitor numbers.
• Cy Twombley is now in the Louvre! See Cy Twombly: Third Contemporary Artist Invited to Install a Permanent Work at the Louvre
• The National Gallery exhibition 'Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes & Discoveries' begins 30 June and runs until 12 September 2010 and you can see an online preview now at the Guardian website
• The Lowry in Manchester has an interesting public art project about Unlocking Salford Quays - although I find the process for awarding Heritage funded commissions valued at £35,000 to each of five artists to be 'curious'.  The project began in October 2009.
• The Art Newspaper discusses the impasse preventing the world’s art museums from adopting less stringent environmental standards in Revising the gold standard of environmental control.  Meanwhile Indianapolis relaxes climate controls as leading directors have been questioning the scientific validity—and cost—of running air conditioning to the current standard specification
• There's an interesting series of posts by Museums etc (which keep being tweeted) taken from Twitter for Museums: Strategies and Tactics for Success

• T4M Tip No 1: Twitter and Local Museums 
• T4M Tip No 2: Using Lists To Increase Your Reach 
• T4M Tip No 3: Opening Up Your Organisation

Artist Bloggers / Regional guides to art activities

• Belinda del Pesco (Belinda del Pesco Fine Art) has announced that she's going to be at the  San Diego Artwalk (Booth 127) in Little Italy April pn the 254th and 25th April and invites people to come and say hello
• Sophie Ploeg (Sophie Ploeg Paintings) has an 'Open Studio' and Exhibition in the first week of May as part of the Severn Vale Art Trail which involves 56 artists living around and about Thornbury in South Gloucestershire. It's part of the Thornbury Arts Festival (23rd April - 2nd May), which is far from a little local 'fete' but a proper festival with plenty of acclaimed artists and musicians taking part.  The local shops have agreed to display work by local artists.  Sophie's already had a dry run with the Marquee for the exhibition.....
• Opening this week: art April in Manchester - the Creative Tourist provides an insight into new exhibitions in contemporary spaces in and around Manchester

If you've got an Art Walk or Art trail or Open Studios coming up don't forget to drop me a line with information - see the side column for how to contact me.

Book reviews

Two reviews of new botanical art books this week - and one more to come

• Book Review: Botany for the Artist Highly recommended and will be enjoyed by botanical artists, students and all those who've enjoyed Sarah Simblet's previous books about drawing 
• Book Review: Botanical Sketchbook - a masterclass by a former student of the Diploma Course run by the Society of Botanical artists - highly recommended
• Next week I'm reviewing Ann Swan's new book about creating botanical art using coloured pencils

Colour

James Gurney (Gurney Journey) writes about lightfastness in a six part series.  Here's the posts so far:

• Lightfastness: Part 1 of 6
• Lightfastness: Markers
• Lightfastness and Dyes
• Lightfastness in Pencils, Watercolors, and Oils

He also highlighted this

• The Gamut Mask which is a very useful tool developed by Richard Richardson who's been painting professionally since 2001.  This is his painting website and this is his blog The Complete Artist

The Gamut Mask is a great way to created harmonic color schemes. It simplifies your color choices and saves you lots of time and paint in achieving unified color palettes quickly and easily.

Opinion Poll

61 people have responded to the poll so far - and it's VERY interesting because it seems to be completely contradicting the contents of the publishers' portfolios.  Please do vote in the poll if you haven't already.

Websites, webware and blogging

The Internet

• 10 Simple Good Search Tricks from the New York Times - I like time-saving posts like these

Social networking

• Just so you know next time you're tweeting - the The U.S. Library of Congress announced this week via its official Twitter account that it will be acquiring the entire archive of Twitter messages back through March 2006. 
• how to create and share drawings via Google docs launched this week

and finally........

The Modigliani Test: The Semantic Web's Tipping Point is very geeky - but interestingly they fixed on a datbase of paintings as the test of a particular aspect of web development.