15th May 2011 - Who's made a mark this week?

Kevin Mizner (Maine-ly Painting - I love the name of his blog!) has been painting scenes of Maine for well over thirty years.  He describes his style as a synthesis of classical landscape techniques with the sensibility of impressionism.  Over and above liking quite a bit of what's he's been painting I also liked the way he writes - especially given the fact he's not afraid to express an opinion.  There are three of his blog posts that I'd like to draw your attention to.

• Is The Devil In The Details? (which was reproduced as Don't Sweat the Details? on the Fine Art Views blog which is how I found Kevin)
• Everyone's A Critic - which comments on the experience of having your art judged and then that opinion reproduced in a local paper
• By Definition where he expresses his views about some contemporary art 

I asked Kevin if he'd like to contribute a post to the Places to Paint series on The Art of the Landscape - and so we have Places to Paint - Maine which was posted today.

Art Blogs and Artists

Drawing and sketching

• Susan Abbott (A Painter's Year) is in Paris and she's both sketching and painting.  When you've sketched in a city it's always interesting to see what choices other people make about places and views to sketch.
• I spent HOURS viewing and sketching the Watercolour exhibition at Tate Britain this week - more about this during this next week - just so long as my sketchbook turns up.  I think I might have left it at the Tate by mistake!
• I apparently stimulated Sue Pownall (Art of a Nomad) to go and sketch at an exhibition - of Rembrandt in the desert!  See Hot Hot Hot  

Painting

• Tracy Helgeson (Works by Tracy Helgeson) will be exhibiting with Wolf Kahn this summer - there's going to be just a matter of a few floor joists between them!  Read all about it in This Will Be Fine, Right?????
• Carol Marine (Carol Marine's Painting A Day) has a couple of very helpful FAQS pages for those interested in how she paints and how she sells her paintings
• FAQS about daily painting
• FAQs for buyers

• I'm getting a lot of interesting responses to the questionWatercolour - Who's your favourite painter?  Tell me who is your favourite watercolour painter and you could win a copy of the Tate 2012 calendar featuring 12 images from the current Watercolour exhibition at Tate Britain
• I never knew that novelist Beryl Bainbridge - who died last summer - had taken up painting as her literary powers declined in her seventies.  This is a slideshow of her paintings 

Landscapes

• see the reference to Places to Paint - Maine above
• I came across a video by Jan Blencowe (The Poetic Landscape) about mixing green paint hence the start of a little mini series on The Art of the Landscape about How to mix natural greens for landscape painting #1. 

Printmaking

• My curious tea party is a blog about printmaking which is new to me.  I've no idea what the UK artist is called but she seems to do linoprints, collographs and makes slightly weird dolls.   It's also a blog which has a blogroll which contains lots of blogs which are new to me.

Art Business and Marketing

• Archives:  Have you ever thought about how best you can archive your images of your work as a digital file - over time?  Have you ever given thought to the challenge faced by digital painters.  This Guardian article Race to save digital art from the rapid pace of technological change is about how the pioneers of computer art are having to confront the issue of how to preserve their work.  It suggests they are in danger of becoming the lost generation of our cultural heritage.
• Pricing:  
• the Making A Mark Poll on Pricing for May is getting a good response - please complete it if you've not done so to date - it's in the right hand column
• Clint Watson highlights a consumer perspective on pricing work on websites in his blog Fine Art Views Yes, You Should Post Prices on Your Art Website

Art Economy and Art Collectors

• Funding for the Arts - Tyler Green asks Why Aren't Americans Angrier?

Although you’d hardly know it from Americans’ comparative silence (on which, more in a minute), decreases in U.S. government funding to arts groups are almost certainly going to be deeper than the ones that have provoked such a strong reaction in the U.K. 

Art Competition

• The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011 - Call for Entries was published this week.  I don't normally cover photography but make an exception for the best competitions and exhibitions.

Art Exhibitions

• The Guardian article Is the blockbuster exhibition dead? tackles the difficult issue of people paying to see an exhibition and then being unable to see the works properly. 
• Call for Entries:  My post about the 10th UKCPS Open International Exhibition 2011 - Reminder got well and truly clobbered by the Blogger outage this week.  It disappeared for what I think was nearly 36 hours.  The post highlights how there is a lot more space this year, no limitations on size and a new mixed media class.

Art Galleries and Museums / Art History

• Artfinder is an unusual site - part art history resource and part ecommerce website - created by a fascinating team of people with diverse backgrounds.  This is Jonathan Jones's take on it. Artfinder: can online art museums match the real thing?

Art Education

Art Podcasts

Many thanks to Jana Bouc (Jana's Journal) who told me about Artists helping Artists on BlogTalkRadio and gave me some recommendations about some of the programmes.  I'd somehow failed to come across this before. The programme is run by Lesley Saeta (Slices of Life) and Dreama Tolle Perry (Dreama's Daily Paintings and Writings) and this is the associated blog Artists Helping Artists.  

It includes a podcast with Carol Marine (Carol Marine's Painting A day) and her husband David.  Apparently Carol is the most popular interviewee they've ever had!

• These are the interviews carol has given
• "Daily Painting - Is It For You - 1st July 2010
• "A Conversation with Carol Marine"  31st March 2011 This is the one I listened to and if you want to get straight to the interview I suggest you skip to about 5 minutes in.  
• here's Carol's workshop list - with the ever present wait lists 
• this is the website of the easel Carol uses for travelling which she packs away in her backpack.  Carol also talks about travelling with paints.

Don't attempt to master the painting - love the attempt
pinned to Carol Marine's easel

Continuing professional education

• Ever fancied being an intern?  How about being an intern at the Guggenheim in New York?  Their website tells you how to apply for Intern and Fellowship Opportunities

Practical tips and techniques

• I have in draft a post about how to hang a painting using D rings and wire.  However I now have the option of telling you that Marion Boddy Evans (painting.about.com) has already written that post How to Hang a Painting with Wire and D rings - with ace pics - or I can try and improve on it.  I'll have a ponder. ;)

Art equipment and supplies

Painting supplies

• My New Best Friends by Deborah Paris (Deborah Paris - A Painting Life) is about using Gaykyd Gel to increase transparency and create impasto

Studio Lighting

• Jana Bouc (Jana's Journal) has done a couple of reviews of essential studio equipment for anybody doing still life - see Reviews: Daylight Easel Lamp and Karin Jurick Tabletop Easel / Panel Holder I've been a fan of The Daylight Company for years and have referenced her review in a post on Making A Mark reviews which also includes links to The Daylight Compnay's technical data - see Product Review: Daylight Professional Artists Lamp which is generating additional comments which I'm using to update the review

Art Studios

• Take a look at Deborah Paris's lovely big studio in Spring Cleaning.  Love the Constable Closet!

Book Reviews

I found out this week that John Berger has a new book out called Bento's sketchbook which is a reflection on the practice of drawing.  This is an interview with him in The Guardian - John Berger: a life in writing

Websites, webware and blogging

• Assess how your website or blog ranks for quality in Google was my post last Monday which highlighted the questions which Google have devised and ask when they assess whether or not your website is a high quality site or not.
• Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) highlighted the 7 Habits of Professional Bloggers.  One could argue that these are not just the habits of professional bloggers - they;re also the habits of professional artists who blog.
• Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for May 9 Utilize Available Screen Space looked at the challenge of how to use screen space when your website is being viewed on a mobile device.  Alertbox focuses on issues of web usability.

Websites and mobile apps both frequently cram options into too-small parts of the screen, making items harder to understand. 

• FASO has made an Art Scammers and Art Scam Searchable Database available to the general public 
• I wonder if the people at blogrank have yet noticed that Seth's Blog is NOT an art blog.  It infiltrated what is otherwise a perfectly respectable and respected blogranking service for art and illustration blogs a while ago and now sits in the #1 spot.  Completely bizarre.  

and finally......

France has been having a big impact on me this week.  I suddenly realised that I'd better get organised about getting ready for my journey to to Provence in 24 days time. I've now got

• a countdown widget on Travels with my Sketchbook to help try and keep me focused
• Plus a to do list and lots of notes of websites and maps and places to go en route and on the way back and it's four pages long!
• but I've yet to work out how to post to my blog while I'm away!  I'm more than a little bit horrified by the difficulties and expense associated with trying to get internet access at an affordable price when away from home.

However I've decided it was about time I finished off posting about my last trip to France in September/October  2009.  I rather ran out of steam - so I've now got an agenda to get that finished too - see Travels with a Sketchbook - in the Touraine.