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Sunday, September 05, 2010

5th September 2010: Who's made a mark this week?

Drawing London Group on the Grand Staircase, St Pancras Hotel
On Friday I spent a day with the Drawing London Group drawing the Grand Staircase at the St. Pancras Hotel, currently under development as a luxury hotel and apartments.  It's a Grade 1 listed building which means it is of great interest to English Heritage and the development is bringing the beautiful interiors back to Gilbert Scott’s original standards.  Some of the heritage features internally make a very attractive - if challenging - subject for sketching and painting.  The perspective just hits you head on!  Below right you can see my sketch of the staircase.

Above is the photo of the Drawing London Group on the Grand Staircase - with many thanks to Marion Wilcocks (second from left) who organised our trip. I've got my special hi-vis t Shirt on!

Thanks also to Manhattan Loft Corporation for allowing access and Roydon Stock the Building Manager and Historian for an extremely informative introduction to the building. This is their website bout the building.

If you like "art in situ", you can see photos of the amazing architecture on the Grand Staircase and structures and decoration in some other parts of the hotel in my Flickr site Drawing London Group visits St Pancras
 
We also learned the Royal Academy is going to be showing art at the hotel when it opens.

Art Blogs

Part of the Grand Staircase
of the St Pancras Hotel - under refurbishment
11.5" x 8" coloured pencils and pen and ink
in Large Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Drawing and sketching

  • This is my sketch of the Grand Staircase in the St Pancras building.  Everything is created from materials from the Midlands (post on Travels with a Sketchbook to follow)
  • Do take a look at the sketch which goes with Moore's law on Mattias Ink 
  • Pete Scully attracted my attention with a novel title for his sketches on Urban Sketches where streams of whiskey are flowing
  • Joan Tavalott (Watercolours by Joan) has been sketching again this time in Venice - as always she's done a terrific number of small watercolour paintings of the buildings, canals and the Lido
  • Another sketch of mine - which I thought was a bit daring! see Tate People - Get a room!

Coloured Pencils and Pastels
Landscape
Painters and Painting

I'm focusing on artists who are new to me this week.

Art Competitions and Art Societies

  • On Wednesday I went to see the Threadneedle Prize exhibition which opened on Thursday.  I was going to do a video but didn't as they were still setting up so I'll maybe try again before it closes.  See the Threadneedle Prize 2010 Exhibition opens today to find out more about it.  I'll be posting my shortlist next week.
  • I didn't submit work to the Society of Feline Artists this year and had a diary clash re the Private View.  However you can see work from the exhibition on the SOFA blog - see see the slide show or the photo album in The Society Of Feline Artists London Exhibition Private View 2010 (which doesn't seem to have a unique URL)

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

Art Business and Marketing

  • New Deal of the Mind is a coalition (the current 'in' word in the UK) and a new organisation (set up in 2009) which focuses on is a coalition of artists, entrepreneurs and opinion formers who recognise the economic, social and cultural value of Britain’s creative talent. I'm probably going to do a more in-depth post about them when I've found out a bit more - but thought you'd like the link now!  You can follow them on twitter http://twitter.com/ndotm
New Deal of the Mind wants to want to boost the UK economy by developing jobs in the creative industries. NDotM has the support of leading figures in the arts, entrepreneurs, politicians from across the political spectrum and policy makers. All of us recognise the urgency of protecting, nurturing and investing in the arts if we are to prevent a generation of creative talent being lost to the recession.

Opinion Poll

  • Yesterday I posted the results of the August making A Mark Poll What's the MAIN way you have sold art in the last 12 months? (RESULTS) which has seen a significant change in which distribution channels for sales produce the most income for individual artists.  It looks like the galleries are fighting back.  or maybe just that online sales and commissions have dwindled a lot.  I'd be interested to know your views so please read and leave a comment about how it's been for you.
  • Tomorrow I'm posting the Makingamark's Top 10 Fine Art Books for August, then...
  • on Tuesday I'll start the Making A Mark Poll for September.
I'm always interested to hear what people think might be suitable topics for polls.

Websites, webware and blogging

I'm trying out tweetie for mac - having become rather disenamoured with Seesmic Desktop.  Let's put it this way - if it's good enough for Stephen Fry......  This is the story behind it Bigbird Redux


and finally......

I went next door to visit the Magnificent Maps exhibition at the British Library after our visit to St Pancras.  Although always very interested in maps (I'm a geography graduate) it had never struck me before just how much art goes into map-making.

It seems to me that we could do with a bit more art back in mao-making and I'm going to be pondering on that one as it's triggered a number of thoughts.

The first of which is that I am now a fan of Grayson Perry who produced a modern version of the Mappa Mundi which is superb - and which will be getting a blog post all to itself!

1 comment:

  1. Great post ! I enjoyed Jenny Grevatte (btw with a A) site, love her work and the similarity she has of the blog I created "the flying Moleskins " ( which includes past members of DSFDF like A.Alade) of sharing a moleskin. I agree with you us artist should have a small video like hers on our sites it makes such a visual piece for friends and patrons so attractive.
    And last but not least I love your sketch of the staircase, very well done .

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