The Making A Mark Awards 2010 (Part 3 - Generating Art)

Welcome to the second day of The Making A Mark Awards 2010 for blogging art on the Internet.  Today in Part 3, it's my pleasure to award prizes as follows:

Generating Art

• The Best Art Blog Project Virtual Challenge Cup
• The Painting a Day Stickability Shield

I'll start with one of the awards which a lot of bloggers have an involvement with.  Nominations were invited in this thread Making A Mark Nominations: Generating Art

The Best Art Blog Project Virtual Challenge Cup

Art can be quite a lonely activity and it's noticeable that people often like to have some sort of involvement in groups and projects related to art! This award is for:

• EITHER a major and reputable new project which adds value and involves a large number of bloggers
• OR a project which has grown over the course of the year in question or otherwise had some significant impact during the course of the year

Nominations for this award were:

The Virtual Paintout by Bill Guffey nominated by Charlene Brown  Seconded by Leslie Hawes
My nomination for the Best Art Blog Project Virtual Challenge Cup is The Virtual Paintout by Bill Guffey.  Using Google Streetview as a source of inspiration for paintings provides just the right degree of unity around a shared theme, and diversity of subject – and lends itself to an incredible variety of interpretations. It’s hard to say which is more fun, finding your perfect location by navigating around the selected area on Google, or looking at all the great stuff other people have found!

The "Creative Every Day Challenge" and the associated challenge, "Art Every Day Month" hosted by Leah Piken Kolidas Nominated by Peggy Stermer-Cox 
To explain, the challenge runs all year long with a Monday check-in. Then, in November, check in is daily. Optional themes are given each month for exploring, or not.  What I think is special about this art blog is the vast array of artists who participate: fine art, fine craft, writers, dancers, photographers, etc. Leah started the challenge in 2008. I also like the wide range of experience in the participants.

The Creative Every Day Challenge is an older and bigger site and obviously attracts a lot of participants.  It's also very laudable to be promoting creativity amongst art bloggers.  However in terms of accessibility I found it a bit difficult to navigate and I did notice you didn;t need to be an art blogger to participate - and these awards are about art blogging.

By way of contrast, the joy of Bill Guffey's Virtual Paintout site is that it has a very simple concept which is the same every month - painting scenes from specific locations using Google Streetview.  The only thing which ever changes is the place and the map.  The participants get to choose the location they want to paint and then provide the link to the map and the image of what they've produced to Bill for posting to the blog. 

Two paintings of County Clare, Ireland from the December thread

Bill has succeeded in attracting a large number of participants every month - and the benefit is that you can see all the pictures on the blog and that makes it very easy for non-participants to understand the project and see its results. I also like the way that it shows people that they can find places to go and paint plein air using Google Street View and consequently its impact is not just limited to this blog!

Finally to top it off, Bill managed to get himself on TV when Prince Edward Island in Canada discovered they were the chosen location of the month!  I like both the accessibility and the impact of this art blog project and so.....

The 2010 winner of
The Best Art Blog Project Virtual Challenge Cup is
Bill Guffey for The Virtual Paintout

The Painting a Day Stickability Shield

The Painting a Day Stickability Shield is awarded to daily painters who maintain a consistently high output of consistently good quality paintings over the course of the year and set a good example to others

This isn't just a prize for people who can produce good paintings.  This award applauds "stickability" which is a quality which not all blogging painters necessarily possess.  The first two artists to win it, Duane Keiser and Julian Merrow Smith both posted a new work every day for well over a year - all of which sold extremely well. Those that have followed have also produced a very large total of paintings every year.

That's the sort of standard I'm looking for in terms of a daily painter who can follow in their footsteps.


Some of the artists nominated simply did not qualify on the basis that they simply are not producing enough work. Hnece they have not been included in the list of nominees below.

I've allowed the nominatins to stand where artists are producing on average in excess of 15 paintings a month although obviously I'm looking for more than this.

Nominations for this award include the following.

• Lisa Daria (Lisa Daria) Nominated by Kimberly Santini who said I'd like to nominate Lisa Daria for the Moose Award and the Stickability one - she is a daily painter who tackles a variety of subjects, always accompanied by her studio assistant, Brie, a big fluff ball who gets into all sorts of troubles.
• Kimberly Santini (Painting A Dog a Day) I'd like to nominate myself for the stickability award - and there's some great company here! 2010 saw the creation of daily painting #1000, a wine issued with one of my daily paintings as it's label, an invitational solo exhibition comprised of my dailies, and my induction to the esteemed Daily Painters Group, among other accomplishments. 
• Nithya Swaminathan (A Splash of Color) nominated by herself.  I have created over 300 pieces this year.  I took up a project titled "300 to 30" where I planned to complete 300 pieces before my 30th birthday, which was earlier this year. Not only did I go on to complete about 305, but stayed with the momentum to paint much much more than I did in all previous years put together. I have not literally produced a new painting everyday though, because I was on vacation for a month, and there have been other times too when I missed painting.
• Leslie Hawes, "Leslie's Drawing A Day" Nominated by herself.  I hope I inspire artists to make art with a 'daily' intention

Like I said - one if the key criteria I'm looking for is "stickability" - and on that basis there's just one artist that really qualifies to walk off with this award.

Courage #541 by Lisa Daria

I'm very grateful to Kimberley Santini for drawing my attention to Lisa Daria.  I've had a lovely time looking through her blog at her wonderful paintings this afternoon and was very nearly distracted and started to buy a painting!  Always a good sign of a very promising painter!  Her blog has gone straight into my list of blogs that I follow.

Significantly, Lisa Daria is the only nominee to have produced a painting every day this year.

She has good reason - as stated below

After one year of painting every day (including Christmas) I've no intention of stopping. For me, daily painting is a daily appreciation for living via the canvas. I'm a young adult cancer survivor so I have a persistence to make sure every day matters. Daily painting has become a reminder every day can bring with it reason. My optimism and perception have become part of the process of creating each day without reservation or excuse. The finished painting represents a consistently positive and stabilizing presence of my view of my immediate surroundings.
Lisa Daria

No more words are necessary - this is a lady whose 'stickability' we can all admire.

The 2010 Winner of
The Painting a Day Stickability Shield
is Lisa Daria

Links:  Yesterday we had two posts:

Part 1 covered: Getting Out of the Studio

• The Painting Plein Air Plus Prize
• The Travels with a Sketchbook Trophy
• The Going Greener Gong

Part 2 covered: Learning about Art and the Art Business

• The FAQs and Answers Really Useful Medal
• The Make Me Think Gong
• The Best Book by an Art Blogger Blue Ribbon

The Making A Mark Awards - website details all previous winners and nominations