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| Purple Heart coloured pencils on Arche HP / copyright Katherine Tyrrell |
Making A Mark Awards
This week the nominations process got underway for the Making A Mark awards 2010. Good progress is being made with nominations coming in for portraits and landscapes - but there's still lots of scope for more.
I'd like to remind people that you don't have to wait for other people to nominate you and your work - you can treat it like an art competition and enter your own work - and that way you get to say which is the best piece you think you've done all year
Here are the links to the formal nomination posts which explain the process.
- Nominate the Best Art (Portrait/Figures) on a Blog in 2010
- Nominate the Best Art (Place/Landscape) on a Blog in 2010
- Nominate the Best Artwork (Still Life) on a blog in 2010
- NEW!!! Nominate the Best Artwork (Natural World) on a blog in 2010
The next posts on this blog will be about nominations for the other categories of awards.
Art Blogs
Artist development
- Christine Kane (Christine Kane) has been writing about finding your passion and the misunderstandings around what that means:
Many thanks to the person who commented on Botanical Art - Resources for Artists and drew my attention to two blogs which I had completely missed. I am so impressed by them! I have to say that botanical art is one area where art societies have grasped the potential of the internet and the blog to advance their particular form of art. I keep seeing new examples of blogs run by botanical artists which open my eyes as to the possibilities - as with these two blogs
- First the blog created by the American Society of Botanical Artists for the 13th Annual International Juried Botanical Art Exhibition 2010 - and that's its title. It's a brlliant idea. The blog records the work in the show and allows people to see it even if they can't get to the exhibition. I'm incredibly impressed with both the artwork and the notion of putting an exhibition catalogue online. If the ASBA would care to tip me off next year if they do another one I'd be very happy to give it a special post on this blog.
The Thirteenth Annual ASBA/HSNY International Juried Botanical Art Exhibition showcases 41 works of art in traditional and contemporary styles by some of today’s finest botanical artists, chosen from nearly 200 submissions for this highly competitive exhibition.
- Next the blog created for the Losing Paradise? Endangered Plants Here and Around the World project by The American Society of Botanical Artists which is currently on exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. Losing Paradise - the blog - is all about works in the project. They have a nice schema for each post. First we get the artwork, then we get the story of the plant and finally the story of the artist and how they came to draw or paint the plant. It's absolutely fascinating. Highly recommended.
- Urban Sketchers (Urban Sketchers) has a new address for its the site: urbansketchers dot org. It also had its birthday card (for its 2nd birthday in November) and celebrated its 1st anniversary as an incorporated organisation in its annual report in Happy birthday to USK! Our 2010 report - which you can download. The development is significant - see below. It's very nice to see a collective which (1) produces an annual report and (2) makes it available to download. Would that more did the same!
As you know, drawing together is part of our manifesto! Our current blog roll includes eight country-based blogs (Singapore, Argentina, Indonesia, Portugal, Mexico, Italy, Spain, República Dominicana), nine city-based blogs (Seattle, Twin Cities, Indianapolis, Seoul, Moscow, Portland, San Francisco/Bay Area, Memphis, Washington DC) and one island-based blog (Sardinia).Coloured Pencils and Pastels
- This is an article about coloured pencil artist Wendy Hollander - and it's also about the Losing Paradise exhibition Endangered plants you'll likely never see
- The Treehouse of Adulthood can be found on Incidental Comics - Words and Pictures by Grant Snider. I was thinking what a really great poster it would make - and then read that it's actually available as one!
Landscape
- Virtual Paintout December - in County Clare, Ireland - I never ever get tired of finding out about the places where Bill Guffey takes his blog. This time I found the Spanish Armada!
- Plein Air Magazine is relaunching in January 2011. You can find out more about the relaunch on a wordpress blog which is being used as a vehicle to convey information about what's going on. M. Stephen Doherty is to edit.
- 50 Best Blogs for Watercolor Artists is a great list even though it doesn't include all the blogs I think of as great watercolour blogs. However it does include Making A Mark! Thank you to whoever compiled it :)
- Congratulations to Tracy Hall (Watercolour Artist Diary) whose work has been included in The new Encyclopedia of Watercolour Techniques
- Two new blogs to me by Lesley Ninnes who lives in St Ives - the art capital of Cornwall and home to Tate St Ives an outpost of the Tate Gallery empire. Lesley has A Giveaway - at long last! in Sea Blue Sky Abstracts for reaching 100 posts which references her second painting blog Picture from St. Ives. She's a member of the Art Space co-operative gallery (which has a blog), the St Ives Society of Artists, St Ives Arts Club and an associate member of Penwith Society of Arts
- Charley Parker has done a post about one the art societies whose exhibitions I always enjoy visiting - The Society of Wood Engravers
- Susan Philipsz's songs of the City: a video of Soundscape artist Susan Philipsz who won the Turner prize. She gives a guided tour of the areas of London's financial district that inspired one of her new works, Surround Me. It's fascinating how she develops her sound for the space. Plus it's very odd for me as I know a lot of the spaces she's talking about really well!
- £7m for world's most expensive book is all about the sale of the Audubon book Bird of America which broke the record for the most expensive book ever sold
Art Business and Marketing
- The Storque has a post for US artists who are selling their work - Tax Tips: Everything You Need to Know About Sales Tax
- Art Market Monitor has identified Australian Art’s Top 50 Influentials
- Twelve artists and illustrators in Kansas got together and created a calendar. How come more art communities don't do this?
- Michale Chesley Johnson blogged about Marketing Your Work
I've been reading Studio Business Practices by Deborah Paris (Deborah Paris - Workshops and Online Classes) - which comes highly recommended by me and Loriann Signori - and I haven't even got to the end! It's a very slim volume but it's jam packed full of stimulating ideas and really excellent tips about how to make it as an artist and survive. I have been nodding my head a lot! What I find interesting is that we both come from a business background and hence maybe look at the business of art in a slightly different way. Deborah is of course a very successful professional artist as well!
My intention is to give you the straight scoop from a working artist - from the trenches.
Art and the Economy / Art Collectors
- Picasso's electrician continues to intrigue. The Art Law Blog highlights an extract from Vanity Fair in John Richardson on Picasso's Electrician
Art Funding / Art Philanthropy
- Arts philanthropy: culture secretary Jeremy Hunt's favourite issue
- The Observer has an article today which likens the The mega-galleries battling it out for control of the global art market to an arts arms race
- What I like about Brian Sewell is that he doesn't mince his words. It's time to sacrifice some sacred cows is his article in the Evening Standard which focuses on the current plight for art funding in the UK. I tried to extract less than this from the article but I refuse to cut his introduction!
The great (but not necessarily good) artists who put themselves forward as spokesmen for their profession have this year been very loud in their objection to cuts in state funding for themselves, for galleries, museums and all other institutions of the “creative industries” in which their work is exhibited. To these august orators and signatories of open letters in the press, their art is a sacred cow never to be fed short rations, never to be slaughtered; to others, however, they — and never mind their art — are fat cats in feather beds, or pigs with snouts in troughs, and short rations must be borne by them as well as by the rest of us.
Brian Sewell It's time to sacrifice some sacred cows
Art Competitions and Art Societies
- Review: Royal Institute of Oil Painters - 123rd Annual Exhibition 2010 is my review and includes commentary on both the selection process and the exhibition. You can now see ALL the winners of Winsor & Newton Young Artist Awards on Winsor and Newton Oil Painter Awards.
However, as pointed out by my post, you should also go take a look at Adebanji Alade's posts about this exhibition. See:
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| Royal Institute of Oil Painters - 123rd Annual Exhibition 2010 |
- Michael Chesley Johnson wites about Painting Competitions. I agree with everything he says about the issues which arise when work is studied for a few seconds before it's decided whether or not it makes the cut
To hook the jury, the piece can't be subtle. In my own experience as juror and judge, I know that work with impact will cause me to look longer. Strong value contrast, stunning color and dynamic design will likely send your work to the "possibles" pile. Anything less than that will be rejected.
Art Exhibitions and art fairs
- an excellent list of current exhibitions by wood engravers - from a number of different countries
- I am invariably resistent to looking at news about art fairs - mainly because very often far too much of it is total guff. However I'd like to say a big "Thank You" to Joanne Mattera for actually making me want to look at the pictures on her posts about the Art Basel Art Fair in Miami Beach in Florida. I particularly enjoyed looking at the smaller works
- Fair Enough: And I'm Off
- Fair Enough: Traveling Incognita?
- Fair Enough: All Over But the Posting
- Fair Enough: Art or Trash? Post updated with captions and a Winner
- Fair Enough: Prologue to the Report
- Fair Enough: Art Basel Miami Beach, Part 1
- Fair Enough: Art Basel Miami Beach, Part 2
- Adabanji Alade has an exhibition of the first 200 paintings of his "Painting Bath Marathon" at The Bath Gallery in Bath which runs until 18th December. I gather the Private View was pretty successful. You can see more about this on The Art of the Lanscape tomorrow.
This astonishing project, an attempt to paint all of Bath in a year, is truly a dedicated tour de force by a remarkably dedicated artist.
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| Adebaji Alade's Bath Marathon - extract from The Bath gallery catalogue |
Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques
- "Review: Paint My Photo": has been updated with a comment from a user saying that the forum is getting better as more users are getting used to the ning platform
Art History
- Deborah Paris A Painting Life is getting pretty excited (It's finally here!). This is because A History of American Tonalism,1880-1920 by David A. Cleveland has been long-awaited and is expected to be the definitive book on this topic - and it has at long last been published. I think I'd like to find out more about tonalism.......
Art Studios
- Do you have a studio mascot? Tina Mammoser (The Cycling Artist) does. - see her Studio mascot
- Robert Genn had practical studio organisation tips about how to Paint Smart
Art Supplies
- I'm seeing some massive percentage reductions on normal prices by some suppliers of art materials. I can only assume business is not wonderful and they want to secure as much of the onlie gift trade as they can. If you are buying art materials at the moment, it's worth checking around. I haven't yet found a way of extracting posts or tweets from the most relevant sites and mashing them - but I will! You can find links to most of the online suppliers on:
Book reviews
- My Book Review: Color and Light by James Gurney. This book defeats review. You can either say an awful lot (extolling its virtues) or very little (in a nutshell - "buy it, you won't regret it!")
I've not come across any other book which covers this topic in such breath and depth and makes it accessible as well.
The major plus point about this book is that it is comprehensive and accessible art instruction of a very high order.
- I've got ones which are more technical - but they're much less accessible.
- I've got ones which are as accessible - but they don't cover as much as he does
Colour
- see the book review!
Copyright
- the Obama administration has promised more crackdowns on websites that violate copyright laws. At the moment the enphasis is on shutting down sites which pirate counterfeit drugs but it should be interesting to see how this all unwinds in relation to other areas of copyright infringment - such as the copying of artwork.
Opinion Poll
- There are just four days left to vote on this month's Making A Mark opinion Poll - see side column.
- After which I'll be looking for your votes for the best artwork of the year!
Websites, webware and blogging
- It looks like an Information Cyber War broke out in a serious way this week on the Internet. Whatever view one might hold about it (which is NOT something which will be debated on this blog), I cannot but think it's going to have some reverberations for the future. You might want to take some time out at some point and indulge in a bit of risk management. Think about how you've got your data organised and what would happen if you couldn't access it. I went onto the web to get away from computer malfunctions....but what happens if I can't access webware because the Internet is malfuntioning?
- Three posts about dealing with social media - offering different perspectives
- 9 Tips to Managing a Growing, Successful Facebook Community
- Who Uses Twitter? Not My Techie, 30-Something Friends
- Three Essential Tips to Growing Sales and Service, One Tweet at a Time a guest post is written by Phil Hollows, the Founder and CEO of FeedBlitz.
- I'm still in two minds about flash websites - mainly because you they don't permit unique URLs for specific pages and also because they are of course not accessible via iPads. However while surveying artists websites this week I did come across one which looked interesting http://www.wix.com/. Here it is as used by the President of the ROI - Peter Wileman - it certainly produces impressive looking artwork.
- Looks like Lorelle (Lorelle on Wordpress) is finally back and posting again on something like a normal basis. One of the best techie bloggers on the Internet and very Wordpress focused.
and finally........
I'm sorry these Sunday posts are getting later and later. The rest of my life keeps hijacking my time at present. I'm going to need to come up with a new strategy for 2011 as I've been trying to respond "on the hoof" as it were in 2010.
Katherine, thanks again for this feature. I don't think it's ever too much to say too many "thank you's" ;)
ReplyDeleteStunning colored pencil piece Katherine!
ReplyDelete