20th June 2010 - Who's made a mark this week?

Yesterday I wrote about Postcard from Provence - paintings by Julian Merrow-Smith in The very best painter of French cheese I know...  Today, I'm featuring another painting from the book because for me it sets a very high standard for books by art bloggers.  This painting was posted very nearly five years ago on Postcard from Provence.

Summer morning, Banon,

14th July 2005

20cm x 10cm, oil on card

copyright Julian Merrow-Smith

Art Blogs and Websites

Drawing and sketching

• This is a map of where all the Urban Sketchers are around the world.  
• My latest sketch of London is of St Mary Axe: The Gherkin and St Andrew Undershaft
• Gabi Campanario has now made it on to local television as the Seattle Sketcher - see I think urban sketching plays well on TV
• On Monday I wrote about artists and illustrators past and present who work in pen and ink.  See Artists and illustrators drawing in pen and ink.  Here's a couple of blogs I identified as I was scanning for any new artists I'd missed.
• Paul Heaston
• Cheeming Boey - who draws on styrofoam cups with a sharpie!
• Plus one of my favourite pen and ink artists is Andrea Joseph (Andrea Joseph's Sketchblog).  Could everybody please send good thoughts to her because her laptop died in May and she's still not got a replacement.
• Vicky Williamson's sketches on Nature Sketchers just get better and better.  Try this sketch of beachcombing in galveston

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

• The CPSA blog has been reminding its members that 18th Annual CPSA Convention/Exhibition fast approaching

Landscapes

• I happened upon the British Council - Landscape Art Collection this week - lots of links to lots of artists whose work is exhibited around the world.
• Marc Hanson "Sunday Morning Frost" was awarded the "John Marion Pardy Landscape Award of Excellence' at the Oil Painters of America's (OPA) 19TH Annual National Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils held last month at the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. 
• My Art of the Landscape blog has had a makeover.  The aim as ever is to provide a neutral background for lots of different landscapes.  Do let me know what you think - if you say nothing I shall think you don't like it! ;)

Painters and Painting

• Jeff Hayes has a painting in the July edition of American Art Collector - Article
• Sarah Wimperis (The Red Shoes) is really hitting her stride with recent paintings about gardens. I love the facts she's painting tangles and nature in the raw rather than nice tidy manicured gardens.

Raspberry Canes
55 cm x 40 cm (21.7" x 15.7"); Pure Watercolour

copyright Sarah Wimperis

Portraiture

• Julia Kay's Portrait Party has one discussion thread per artist. This is an article about  Portraits Swim Across the Internet Like Love-Notes in a Bottle and tips for How to find someone's discussion thread (including yours)

Printmaking

• This week the Telegraph featured the Best of Britain’s sellers on Etsy.  These included printmakers
• Nick Morley, artist (linocutboy.etsy.com) 
• Rob Ryan, artist (misterrob.etsy.com) who's located not far from me in Columbia Market in Bethnal Green.
• Sherrie York has developed a new reduction linocut with 11 colours!  See Hanging out to dry - "Runoff" linocut on her blog Brush and Baren.  Sherrie also has have "Decay, Comma" on the cover of The 2010 issue of "Writing Nature" which is now available (free!) online. 

 "Runoff" - reduction linocut - 6" x 9"

copyright Sherrie York

• Vivien Blackburn (paintings prints and stuff) has been doing experiments with linoprints and digital images.  Check out linoprint fish and digital experiments and lino cut - digital images update

Wildlife Art

• On Tuesday I wrote about Art for animals and birds in Gulf oil disaster. Kelly Light created a brand new blog called Ripple has now raised over $4,000 towards relief of the suffering of the wildlife in the Oil Spill catastrophe.  The blog itself also demonstrates the sheer range of creativity which emerges when people are called upon to make art.
• Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) has also highlighted Olivia Bouler - an 11 year old who wants to help the birds - her efforts raised $20,000 in 3 days courtesy of a story run by AOL.  This is the article Young Bird Artist Amps Up Oil Spill Relief Efforts on the Audubon Magazine blog which is a good blog for keeping an eye on the rescue efforts.
  

An aspiring ornithologist, she wrote to the Audubon Society, pointing out that she is a “decent drawer” and asking if it was possible to sell some of her bird images to help raise money for relief efforts.

Art Business and Marketing

• Etsy had a major feature in the Telegraph this week - see Etsy brings big sales to small businesses
• Joanna Mattera's (Joanne Mattera Art Blog) regular Marketing Monday posts include Two Nasty Flavors; Timing and Bad Things, Good Dealers

Newsletters

• A couple of blog posts about email newsletterswhich I've added in to Email Newsletter Software - Resources for Artists
• The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Newsletter
• How One Little Minute Can Increase Your Email Open Rate

Estate Planning for Artists (Wills for Artists)

• Tina Mammoser is on a quest to find a suitable will for artists to cover the handling of your artistic output on your death.  She's found one for authors.  It's a great idea - and one which I guess a lot of people duck!  Have any of you got any links which are useful which you'd like to share?

Art and the Economy / Art Collectors

• I've always wondered about Art forgeries: does it matter if you can’t spot an original?

Art Competitions and Art Societies

• My post this week about the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize 2010: shortlist announced has proved to be VERY popular siunce I included as many links as I could find to the websites of the artists shortlisted for this major contempoarry painting prize - worth £25,000
• The V&A Illustration Awards Display 2010 open on Tuesday and continue until 19 December 2010. The V&A Illustration Awards are held annually to highlight the best book and editorial illustration published in the UK in the previous year. Their aim is to encourage, recognise and celebrate high standards of creativity in the industry. The 2010 awards will be announced tomorrow.
• The awards ceremony for the BP Portrait Award 2010 at the National Portrait Gallery is on Tuesday night; then there's a private view on Wedesnday before the exhibition opens to the public on the 24th June. 
• The Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award shortlist - outstanding buildings across UK - includes 2 art musuems 

Art Exhibitions, galleries and museums

Major art galleries and museums

• The Independent reported last week on a High-profile divorce stuns art world - they're talking about Christies and the Haunch of Venison

Other galleries are said to be beside themselves with joy at the argument between the auction house and the small Haunch of Venison gallery in London.

• The New Tate Modern director named as Belgian Chris Dercon.  (Who he?)
• I've still not got to the Wyeth exhibition but this review by Richard Dorment in the Telegraph suggests I maybe don't need to hurry - see The Wyeth Family at the Dulwich Picture Gallery

Art Bloggers - exhibitions

• Karin Jurick (A Painting Today) has been posting paintings from her 8 squared show at the 16 Patton Gallery in Asheville
• The "Drawing on Nature" exhibition by the 33 nature journal keepers/artists (click the link to see who is participating) at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.  It's open until September 12

Upcoming exhibitions include....

• Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries at the National Gallery, London from June 30.  This Art Knowledge News article discusses the exhibition
• Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals opens at the National Gallery;s Sainsbury Wing on 13 October and continues until 16 January 2011
• Florum is an exhibition in Sevenopaks by leading botanical artists in the south east

I'll be doing another blog post looking forward to exhibitions in the next six months in the fortnight.

Art fairs

• Last week I reviewed Patchings Art Festival - and this week both Gayle Mason and Vivien Blackburn have added their thoughts in Patchings Art Festival 2010 and Art Events weekend - Patchings Art Festival  respectively

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

Art education - drawing research

• Susan B. Roth, a drawing instructor at Ohio State University, created an experiment to research the potential cause(s) behind the most common drawing errors she was observing in her classroom - and ArtPlantaehas summarised the results in this blog post Investigating the Drawing Process

Students must be taught how to view objects “as a collection of relationships between end points and other elements” instead of as a whole object.

workshops

• This is the schedule of Teacher Workshops 2010–2011 at the National Gallery in Washington
• Karin Jurick (A Painting Today) has 13 places still open at her workshop May 23-27, 2011 at the National Academy of Design in New York City. More info can be found here.  Her workshop thjis November is fully booked.
• you can use plant pigments to paint in "Painting with Plants" at the San Diego Botanic Garden. July 17, 2010.
• Marc Hanson has a couple of spots left on his '4th Annual' Taylors Falls Landscape Workshop in August - painting plein air whatever the weather. 
• Art Biz Blog - Correct Your Reference Photos
• Jeff Hayes (Contemporary Still Life Paintings) has a series of posts explaining and illustrating the process of How a Painting Is made

Art History

• I've posted a couple of JM Whistler's pastel landscapes of Venice on my Art of the Landscape blog today

Art Studios

• Cathy Johnson (The Quicksilver Workaholic)looks as if she might be going for "studio of the year" after winning the Going Greener Gong last year!  She has a new blog about her new studio Artists Shed
• Meanwhile Annie Bissett Woodblock Dreams is showing of her new studio in Welcome to My New Studio!

Art Supplies

Sketching toolkits

•  Pete Scully is often asked what materials and kit he uses for sketching and this is his very full and well illustrated answer

Book reviews

• Botanical artists all over the world will be pleased to hear that 'The Art of Botanical Painting' is being reprinted.  This core text for the Society of Botanical Artist's has been very difficult to get hold of for some time.  New books should start coming through in August.
• Art Plantae has a book review of Trudy Friend's book which provides Solutions to Common Drawing Problems

Websites, webware and blogging

websites - art

• My exercise to find the websites highlighted some progress in artists' websites which I recorded on Wednesday in The Websites of Contemporary Painters in the UK
• The latest version of the V&A Search the Collections, was judged to Best of the Web in the research category at the international Museums and the Web conference in Denver in April 2010.

internet - generic

• This is a link to a CNET review of Safari 5
• The Gmail blog has had a post providing a Tip: 5 things you may not know you can do with attachments in Gmail

and finally........

BBC iPlayer has The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2010: A Culture Show Special (HD version).  Robin in Tuscany (Have Dogs Will Travel) tells me she very much enjoyed watching it so maybe more people overseas should try and see if they can get it.