9th May 2010 - Who's made a mark this week?

This week got slightly derailed for me by the General Election in the UK coupled with the Local Elections and Referendum as to whether or not we have a Mayor where I live.  Somehow or other they managed to spend all night verifying the ballot papers and the count didn't even start until 8am(!) - long after most elections elsewhere in the country were done and dusted. 

We're now in the Hung Parliament - what happens next? phase or as Jo Brand quipped in Have I got Election News for you on Friday night - we're now the envy of countries the world over because we don't have a government! 

Yesterday was the 65th anniversary of VE day - the end of the second world war in Europe.  It delivered a dream opportunity for the news photographers as all three leaders of the political parties lined up next to one another at the Cenotaph whilst in the midst of discussions as to who should get pally with who and govern the country.

Clearly some of the photographers recognised the opportunity to get into the history books and realised that the very best photograph was going to need to be incredibly well composed - and that the faces and the posture needed to tell the story. After looking at quite a few of them I felt that this one by Luke MacGregor best captured the story of the day.  I'd certainly give it an award!

Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Gordon Brown attend a VE day ceremony at the Cenotaph in London
Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters - published in The Guardian Election Live Blog and front page

Luke MacGregor is a professional photographer based in south-east England and has worked in the industry since 1998. He now predominantly photographs for the global news and picture agency Reuters in the UK.

You'll find odd references to the election in blog posts today - starting with How many people agree with Nick?

Art Blogs

Drawing and Sketching

• Thanks to Charley Parker of Lines and Colors for highlighting Ben Heine (Ben Heine) - in Pencil vs. Camera (Ben Heine).  That is such an unusual technique! This is Ben Heine interviewed by Simon Crisp

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

Pastel Painting by Loriann Signori 

• a couple of helpful posts by pastel artist Loriann Signori (loriann signori's painting-a-day) highlighting  vibrations with color plus the diva and her role on the issue of the balance between vibrating colour and neutrals (what Jeanne Dobie calls the mouse colours).  She also notes she's returned to using marble dust covered board and thick watercolor (almost handled like oil) with pastel on top - and promises another post on this topic which I shall look forward to.
• Plus a tip from Albert Handell via Richard McKinley (Pastel Pointers Blog) in Overcoming Pastel Boredom through the art of serendipity
• The Pastel Blog says that British pastel artists  British artists Andrew Hemingway and Sheila Goodman are featured in the June 2010 edition of Pastel Journal.  I've seen the work of both artists and they are both excellent.

Graphic Art

• Yesterday I wrote a piece about Keep Calm and Carry On - the best motivational poster ever? - it links to The Best of Keep Calm and Carry On which tells the story of this poster, the internet meme it generated in terms of parodies.  It's graphic art gone viral.

Landscape art

• The Art of the Landscape this week featured How to draw a tree by Edition Handdruck. Martin Stankewitz (Edition Handdruck) not only produces delightful plein air pen and ink drawings of trees and then fabulous monotype and giclee prints from the drawings and sketches - he also tells you how you can do it too!
• Landscape painting in pastels by pastel artist and tutor Deborah Secor has published another chapter Chapter Thirteen - Foregrounds

Nothing distracts more than a weak, disruptive composition that allows the eye to meander, fixing on nothing and going nowhere. Instead, a strong foreground will lead clearly and succinctly to the focus of the painting, with enough detail to enhance that subject.

Photography

• 1000 Strip Off in Spencer Tunick Tribute to Artist LS Lowry - just one of your everyday blog post titles!

Plein Air

• See Richard McKinely's tips for plain air painting in the tips and etchniques section below.
• I love watching out for when Ed Terpening (Life Plein Air) is painting at Point Lobos (just south of Monterey) - because I've been there and would love to go back! 
• Ontario Plein Air Society - OPAS in 2010! Where We Go From Here - an interesting survey conducted by a plein air society with the results posted on their blog.  
• How many of you who are in plein air groups which have a blog?  If you are please leave a comment and a link at the end of this post.

Street Art

• The street art in Brazil is continuing to amuse people from this blog rules

Art Business and Marketing

• Alyson Stanfield amused me by having a May Day post - about a very important issue Is your art business prepared for flood? Fire?
• Becky Hunter a writer, artist and AHRC funded art historian-in-training at the University of York, provides a summmary of the career advice she recived in an appointment with the university's careers adviser in Freelance Journal: Careers Advice Report

I have found that intelligently commenting on articles at Guardian Culture or The Huffington Post also brings curious visitors back to my portfolio site.

Art and the Economy / Art Collectors

• Artwork can still sell well and make records in a recession and  a couple of recent posts have been commenting on this.
• Art Daily: Flush Collectors Ready to Spend Again at Auctions of Rare Art
• The Art Newspaper: Art market analysis: Why works make records in a recession
• The Guardian: Picasso painting sets world record price at auction

Top hedge fund managers -- who played no small role in the sustained art market boom that ended precipitously with the 2008 financial crisis -- recorded their best year ever in 2009. The annual ranking by AR: Absolute Return + Alpha showed the top 25 managers earned more than $25 billion.


"Our collectors are really rich again," said one auction house official.

• Alyson Stanfield highlighted on twitter that Governor Patterson proposes 40% slash in NY arts funding which makes it largest proposed cut of all NY state agencies.  NYS ARTS is committed to engaging stakeholders to advocate for supportive arts policies and increased resources for the arts in New York State.  Currently it is highlighting that 7,500 Emails sent to Albany... We need MORE!! connected to action aimed at rejecting the Governor's proposed 40% cut to NYSCA local assistance funding.

Art Competitions

• Art Daily reports that Colombian Sculptor Doris Salcedo Awarded the Velázquez Visual Arts Prize 2010 which is worth €125,00.  She's the woman behind the crack in the floor of the Tate Turbine Hall
• Turner prize 2010: a shortlist that is half-baked writes Jonathan Jones (Jonathan Jones on art).  He says that only two of the four artists shortlisted for this year's Turner prize – Susan Philipsz and Angela de la Cruz – are worthy contenders and that's it not good enough.  I have to say I agree with his conclusions about Dexter Dalwood.

the real low-point for me is the final artist here, Dexter Dalwood, whose work might make him a candidate for the world's first talent transplant.

• another Guardian articles however suggests that Sound artist Susan Philipsz's inclusion on the Turner prize shortlist should make Britain sit up and listen and that Sound art is here to stay
• The finalists for the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation's "Wildlife Artist of the Year 2010" exhibition have been announced.
• I've had an annihilating analysis of a local art competition sent to me.  I've just got to work out how to avoid legal repercussions and then I'll be posting it on the blog.  All those running local art shows will find it a useful read.

Art Exhibitions 

This is my post about Art Exhibitions in London - Summer 2010.  The highlights for me are the Wyeths at Dulwich and Singer Sargent at the RA

Major Museums and Art Galleries

• The Ancient World in London asks UK Election 2010: What will Happen to Britain's Museums?
• Culture 24 says that The Museums at Night 2010 Flickr event needs you.  More about this next week
• Last week I commented on The exhibition of dutch landscape paintings which has opened at The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.  This week Jonathan Jones comments on Dutch Landscape Paintings which can be seen in London in The still waters of Dutch landscape paintings run deep
• Museos Unite is dedicated to ending the tyranny of low salaries, poor benefits, and lackluster advancement opportunities for highly skilled and highly trained professionals (particularly those with multiple degrees) wanting to work in the museum sector.  One post asks What is the job of a public historian worth? 
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an article about its exhibition Mastering the Art of Chinese Painting: Xie Zhiliu (1910–1997) and the artist's process

unlike many artists, Xie preserved numerous copies and sketches he made throughout his career, not only building a unique record of his creative process but also revealing how a seemingly spontaneous composition could be preceded by one or more sketches and drafts 

Art Society Exhibitions

• Robin-Lee Hall won the Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture (for the most distinguished portrait) at the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.  The painting is of Joy and is 28" x 24" in egg tempera.  I need to get to see this exhibition next week - which means a blog post about it later this week - and will probably go on Tuesday or Thursday to link in with one of the events listed below.  The exhibition closes on 21st May.
• Annual Exhibition Artist’s Tour is on Tuesday 11 May (from 1pm).  Opinionated reflection on the exhibition from exhibitor and RP Member Andrew James
  
• The Changing Faces Debate will take place on Thursday 13th May from 7pm at the Mall Galleries

Art blogger exhibitions 

• Luann Udell  has 30 days of fame as Artist-of-the-month (May) at the Sharon Arts Center gallery in Peterborough NH.  She gets a whole page on the website to herself!  
• Loriann Signori has a show The Magic Hours opening at Waverly Street Gallery, Bethesda MD next Friday (Friday, May 14, 2010). The exhibition comprises  Recent works by Loriann Signori and New Work by Gallery Artists.

Art Education / workshops / Tips and technique

Workshops

• a really sound post by Alyson Stanfield (ArtBizBlog) about preparing to be a workshop participant  - Don’t Waste Your Investment in Learning Opportunities.  Lots of excellent advice and highly recommended
• Pastel artist and Making A Mark Award winner Margeret Dyer has got two 7 days Pastel Workshops at La Bonne Etoil, Fontaine-Fourches, France starting the end of May.  
• Robin-Lee Hall holds between 10:00am and 4:00pm at the Riverside Craft Centre, Thames Street, Lower Sunbury, Middlesex.

Tips and Techniques

• Richard McKinley (Pastel Pointers) has three posts with tips about plein air painting
• Plein Air Tips, Part 1
•  which deals with the challenges for the past artist
• Plein Air Tips, Part 2: Sun Vs. Shade provides observations about how best to deal with different lighting situations
• Plein Air Tips, Part 3 covers approaches to seeing your work in a different way - and frecording what you're looking at and what you've been doing
  
• Sadie Valeri previously wrote a post about making her own gesso. This new post shares her notes based on the most recent batchprepping over 30 very small panels for students Home-Cooked Gesso Part II
• Many artists have asked Ester Roi how she frames her artwork without glass. For more information please check this post on her blog.

Art History

• The Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog has a post about ‘Jean-Michel Basquiat’: Julian Schnabel on the New Film

Book and Magazine Reviews

• I've finally finished my review of Ann Swan's new book for coloured pencil artists wanting to do botanical art and botanical artists wanting to try coloured pencils.  You can read it here Book review: Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils.   Members of UKCPS should watch out for a post on the UKCPS News blog tomorrow related to this book - which we expect will generate much interest!
• My post on Wednesday Art magazines in the UK and USA - can you help? triggered a huge number of comments  
• I've not come across fReado before but Julian Merrow Smith (Postcard from Provence) is using it to help promote his book - see Postcard From Provence, Paintings By Julian Merrow-Smith in the Arts, Photography and Design section of fReado.  It gives you a readout for full screen views and widget views which I've not seen before - so helps you tell whether or not your marketing activities are working!  It also provides scope for social media marketing via sharing the link with all the usual suspects - Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Diggs this and Add This plus a lot more.  Worth taking a look at it if you have a book you want to promote via an e-digital short version 

Colour

• Continuing with James Gurney's blog posts about Colour, we have Color Bleeding

Color bleeding is a term used in the computer graphics industry to describe the way the color of an illuminated surface influences the surfaces around it.

Copyright

• Eileen Postlethwaite (Drawings from Nature) highlights what can happen to images on your blog in Beware, this can happen.   It's happened before to artists and it will happen again.
• However I'd caution against indicating that copyright resides with a 'brand' term without any further information such as the legal entity asserting the copyright and how to contact that legal entity.

Opinion Poll

• The Making A Mark Opinion Poll for May is going well - 57 response so far to the Poll which asks Have you bought a painting DVD?  You can find the poll in the right hand column.  Comments on the post are highlighting DVDs which people have liked.
  

Websites, webware and blogging

 Blogging

• I am still totally unable to understand bloggers who write about their work and post images on their blogs - and then provide absolutely no indication of who they are or how to contact them!  One blogger is not in this post this week because of this as I won't post anonymous posts.  Have you checked recently to see how you announce yourself on your own blog?
  
• Nithya Swaminathan (A splash of color) has written a blog post which provides a step by step guideline to add the facebook like button to a blogger blog - Adding the Facebook “like” button to a Blogger blog

Social Networks

• I wrote a techie post on Tuesday to say that Techie: Ning announces new terms

Social Marketing

• If you're using Squidoo - as many artists do - to provide support for your social marketing of your artwork, you'll find it useful to take a look at this post Squidoo modules that aren’t good for SEO

and finally........

I've been waiting for this - David Hockney is now sketching using an iPad and loves it!  I knew he wouldn't be able to resist it!  My only surprise is that he wasn't part of the media hype at the launch.

Bloomberg says that David Hockney’s IPad Doodles Resemble High-Tech Stained Glass.

One of the tricky aspects of this new Apple Inc. device -- intermediate between a cell phone and a laptop in size -- is the difficulty of carrying it about. Hockney, though, has always had his suits made with a large internal jacket pocket for carrying sketch books.

I now want large internal jacket pockets!