3rd October 2010 - Who's made a mark this week?

October is always Big Draw month run by the Campaign for Drawing - however the Big Draw has greatly expanded from the event I first started writing about back The Big Draw in 2006

October 2010 is Big Draw month in twenty countries and on five continents. Launched in 2000, this annual initiative has grown from 180 events in the UK to over 1500 worldwide. The Campaign aims to use drawing to connect visitors with museum and gallery collections, urban and rural spaces – and the wider community – in new and enjoyable ways.

'Make Your Mark on the Future' is the theme for this year's Big Draw.  I'm sitting here with a big smile on my face! :D

Make your Mark on the Future - 2010 Big Draw theme

About the Big Draw

Here's a list of events and links to more information

• Join an event across the UK - a database provides details of all local events in different areas
• Drawing Inspiration Awards By documenting your Big Draw event you will become eligible to apply for one of 16 Drawing Inspiration Awards. Take a look at the Drawing in Action website for inspiration.
• on 22 and 23 October for Make your Mark on the Future: From London Bridge to Tower Bridge.
• I'm greatly intrigued by Draw and Fold Over - especially the bit where my cursor becomes a big disembodied arm and hand which gets a blue ball point pen to draw with!
• My old drawing tutor, James Lloyd features in a Guardian article about Artists' self-portraits to raise money for drawing campaign which is part of Big Draw month
• If you want to think about running an event next year, you might like to consult the website page which provides lots of good advice - see Planning for more about
• Planning (file size 183 KB) preparation guidance, including funding, publicity and event logistics.
• Event Coordination (file size 127 KB) guidance on working with volunteers & artists; participants, including targeted groups.
• Drawing Differently (file size 346 KB) identifies drawing activities, inventive ideas and materials.
• Evaluation & Documentation  (file size 119 KB) guidance on documentation, feedback & evaluation procedures.
• Plus the Drawing Inspiration Awards Application pdf or word; Photography Permission Form pdf; Evaluation Form pdf or word
• Anybody running a drawing event and/or workshops will be interested to know that you can get your hands on discounted drawing materials

The Daler-Rowney Big Draw Starter Pack will be available to buy from 15 September at £150 (worth over £400 at retail).

This year there's more information about the International side of the Big Draw

Several countries are now initiating their own nation-wide or city-wide Big Draw projects. You can take a look at international activity on the Drawing in Action website, including work produced by museum education teams, artists and teachers.

• There is now a a Polish and Hungarian version of this website.

Polska strona Kampanii na rzecz rysowania jest już dostępna na www.wielkierysowanie.wordpress.com/

• Here are the reports from six European partners using drawing to support adult learning.

The Big Draw is sponsored by Daler-Rowney and Cass Art.

The Big Drawing People Book Review

What I'd like to try and do this month is run another drawing book review event like The Big Drawing Book Review which I ran in 2008.  This will involve me in making a big effort to review books about drawing people and I'll inviting others to do likewise in relation to their favourite book about drawing people.  More about this tomorrow......... 

Art Blogs and Art Bloggers

Drawing and sketching

• Liz Steel (Liz and Borrowmini) is coming to her end of her around the world sketching tour of places where she can drink tea - the latest sketches are of Venice and Rome.  If I'm very quick I might just get my sketch of Kew Palace - done sitting next to Liz in Kew Gardens - up on my sketchbook blog before she finishes! ;)

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

• Nicole Caulfield (Nicole Caulfield Fine Art) has been promoting coloured pencils in her local newspaper the Keene Sentinel 
• I had another go at a sketch I've done before last week - see St Pauls from Tate Modern on a grey day on Travels with a Sketchbook in.....

Landscapes
I've been featuring art bloggers this week in The Art of the Landscape's Places to Paint Series.  Check out:

• Places to Paint: Linda Blondheim in Florida
• Places to Paint: Charlene Brown's Rockies
• Places to Paint: Bridget Hunter's West Coast of Scotland

Don't forget to let me know if there is a place you love to paint - but do read this first.

Others whose landscapes caught my eye included

• September On The River by Sarah Wimperis

Painters and Painting

• I loved Duane Keiser's (A Painting a Day) Cobalt Blue that colour is just so WOW!
• It's a different take on Friday Night Class for Cindy Skating at the Edge of Infinity

Art Business and Marketing

• Deborah Secor's Landscapes in Pastels - has reached Chaper 34 - Art Fairs.  It contains lots of practical tips for anybody who has ever considered selling their work at an art fair
• Joanne Mattera (Joanne Mattera Art Bloghas a 'Marketing Mondays' post about The Academic Gallery, Part 1
Artist or Business Person – Can They Be One? from Art Marketing Secrets is a question I've been pondering of late.  I nearly didn't recommend this article as this is a very irritating website which bombards you with pop-ups despite a block on cookies!

Art and the Economy / Art Collectors

• Following Art Over to the Dark Side by Howard L. Rehs on Art Market Monitor illustrates graphically the seamier side of artists, art collectors and museum officials
• Howard L. Rehs also gives his General Thoughts on the Art Market for JustLuxe website for those that want to know more about having an affluent lifestyle
• This is his latest newsletter (October 2010) in which he comments on what NOT to do when visiting an art fair.  This seems to be the source of articles subsequently seen elsewhere.
• This is Art Buying 101 by Tracy Staton from an old edition of the American Way (October 2008) which proposes a set of rules for becoming an art investor.

Art Competitions and Art Societies

Jerwood Drawing Prize 2010 won by Virginia Verran - I'm hoping to get to see this exhibition at the Jerwood Space.  It's nice to see a prestigious drawing prize given to somebody working in Pens on canvas (but could somebody explain to me how that works?)

Art Exhibitions

• Record-breaking Gauguin Restrospective opens at Tate Modern is the first of a number of posts I expect to write about this exhibition.  You can also see
  
  • the review in today's The Observer by Laura Cuming - see Gauguin: Maker of Myth
  • plus Gauguin: Into the mystic by Alan Hollinghurst in The Guardian's Art and Design section
  • Jonathan Jones recently highlighted on his blog a conclusion I came to recently - that our view of Gauguin is far too influenced by Anthony Quinn's portrayal of him as bullying Van Gogh in Lust for Life - which led to 'the ear incident'.  See - Our love for Van Gogh costs Paul Gauguin dear
  • On the BBC iPlayer there is Front Row - Gauguin, Nick Hornby and Terry O'Neill and a Radio4 programme Gauguin: The Right to Dare (a recommended listen - it has some excellent contributions)

An investigation into the life and legacy of Paul Gauguin, the French post-impressionist artist who defied convention in his lifetime and whose work continues to divide opinion.

• Current exhibition listings in the New York Times

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

Deborah Secor (Landscape Painting in Pastels) continues her blog book about Landscape Painting Chapter 33- Criticize your work

Art Museums and Galleries

The theme this week is Museums are changing how they do things.....

• This is absolutely fascinating - ReadWriteWeb has an article about What Do Online Documentation and Museums Have in Common?
• It references The Museum Is Watching You in the Wall Street Journal last month

More museums are paying to send stealth observers through their galleries. Based on what they see, the museums may rearrange art or rewrite the exhibit notes. Their efforts reflect the broader change in the mission of museums: It's no longer enough to hang artfully curated works.

From Picassos to Sarcophagi, Guided by Phone Apps highlights how going to a museum is being transformed by the use of apps (downloaded from iTunes and elsewhere) which guide you round the work in a museum

Art History

Martin Bailey (The Art Newspaper) queries whether Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring should be travelling to Japan.  In A trip too far for Vermeer? he highlights how Girl with a Pearl Earring heads to Japan despite previous problems at Kobe museum.  A Vermeer painting previously exhibited in the same gallery was discovered to have flaking paint on its return.

Colour

James Gurney (Gurney Journey) is still writing about colour and light - prior to the publication of his new book

• Chromatic Shadows, Part 1 looks at the colour of cast shadows (one of my favourite things to draw!)
• In Chromatic Shadows, Part 2 James explains how chromatic shadows are created

Copyright

• "Copyright law needs to be simpler, understandable, and more flexible to change with the times" - so days the Art Law Blog quoting the report of the Copyright Principles Project
• Ever wondered what What Happens to Confiscated Art 'Fakes'?  Read Daniel Grant (The Huffington Post) to find out what happens
• Daniel Grant on what happens to confiscated fakes.
• Jennifer Saranow Schultz (New Tork Times - Bucks Blog) writing about When It’s Illegal to Photograph Artwork
• This is Copyscape - an online free check on infringements of your copyright.  I'm currently developing another resource for artists which is about copyright infringement and am looking for recommendations of software which you've used to check people who have plagiarised your website.  Please leave a comment below if you know of any software you'd like to recommend.

Opinion Poll

On Saturday I posted

• the results of the last month's Making a Mark Poll - see Which numerical performance measure matters most to you as an artist? (RESULTS)
• the new Making A Mark Poll for October - see POLL: What do you do when not being an artist? It's amazing - it only went up yesterday and it's already had more responses than for the poll last month!!  You can find the poll in the usual place in the right hand column - inbetween "for your Information" and above "Bloggers who folllow this blog".

Websites, webware, blogs and tweets

• For those staying alert to the wider context in which are all operate, Wired Magazine has a useful post about 7 Essential Skills You Didn't Learn in College
• Statistical Literacy: Making sense of today’s data-driven world
• Post-State Diplomacy: Power and politics, sans government
• Remix Culture: Samples, mashups, and mixes
• Applied Cognition: The neuroscience you need
• Writing for New Forms: Self-expression in 140 characters
• Waste Studies: Understanding end-to-end economics
• Domestic Tech: How to use the world as your lab
• Only those of us who have already spilt our cups of tea or coffee over their keyboards are allowed to smile at this one (that includes me)! See L-ptop Dis-ste- - yet another useful post by that man again - James Gurney. 
• Feedblitz published an article about how Related Articles Increase RSS Engagement - which is why I use LinkWithin on my blog

and finally........

Next week I'll be waking up on Sunday morning in a rather nice Welsh Castle dating back to 1277 after the wedding of my (almost) neice.  Which means there won't be a Who's made a mark next week.

On the other hand you might find some interesting sketches popping up instead at a later date!

What I'm going to do next is start watching the first episode of The Genius of British Art Power and Personality with David Starkey exploring how royal portraits have influenced Britons' ideas of power and personality. It's on Channel 4 from 7:00pm to 8:00pm.