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Sunday, May 29, 2011

29th May 2011 - Who's made a mark this week?

"Self-Portrait - taking in the sun"
by Ohla Pryymak

selected for BP Portrait 2011
© Olha Pryymak
Many congratulations to Olha Pryymak (Olha Pryymak) who has had her self-portrait selected for the 2011 Exhibition of the BP Portrait Award - see BP Portrait award competition 2011 – shortlisted! on her blog.

That means that Olha is among the 55
selected artists to show out of 2,732 record applicants this year.  That's 0.02% of the entry.

This painting has also been chosen as one of the ones used to advertise the exhibition - and is currently being displayed on the Visit page of the NPG website.  It's also the feature portrait on the front cover of the NPG booklet about exhibitions and events at the National Portrait Gallery over the summer.

I was particularly pleased to hear this news as I've been encouraging Olha in her endeavours for some time.

Last Autumn we translated that into a formal mentoring relationship.  I took a look at her marketing activities and provided her with a report providing specific advice and action points relating to what I thought she needed to do next. Looks like it's working! :)

Maybe I need to think about doing a bit more of this?

That'll be something to mull over while I'm away - and you need to read the message at the end to find out why this is the last "who's made a mark this week" for a few weeks

In the meantime I'm still waiting to hear about the rest of the selected artists and I'm hoping to post the list before I leave for France next week.

Art Blogs

Coloured Pencils and Pastels
  • Happy 30th Birthday to The Pencil Museum in Keswick which has been celebrating its 30th birthday this weekend.  Tweets indicate everybody has had a great time!  You can follow the Pencil Museum on Twitter 
  • Casey Klahn (Pastel) writes about My Palette.  Some really good suggestions for different ways to collect pastel.  (It's a requirement - if you want to be a pastel artist - you have to have this deep-seated urge to collect colour aka pastels!)
  • Contemporary Abstract Pastels
  • I am so jealous of Vivien Blackburn.  She opened her door to the postman this week to find she had won a complete set of Lyra Rembrandt coloured Pencils! Read Second Prize - Lyra Polycolor set to find out why.
  • Which is the most popular brand of Color Pencils?  This is your chance to have your say.  I created the site on Wizzley which is a new information webware site.  
    Landscape
    After George Lambert - A View of Box Hill, Surrey (1733) by George Lambert (1700 – 30 Nov. 1765)
    pencil and coloured pencils in large Folio Sketchbook
     Painting
    • Ruo Li is a Chinese artist whose painting “California Autumn” won the Gold Medal Award for Master Signature Members at the 19th National Juried Exhibition of Oil Painters of America.  Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) has reviewed his work - in Ruo Li.  I took at his website and it seems to me he's a master of perspective and tone.  Some paintings very much reminded me of Singer Sargent.
    • Nancy Reyner (Nancy Reyner) author of Acrylic Innovation Styles & Techniques Featuring 64 Visionary Artists wrote a post last year about Transparent Layers - Glazing vs. Washes
    • Keith Bond (Keith Bond Fine Art) - also writing last year - comments on the process he adopts for Creating a Studio Work From a Plein Air Study 
    Plein Air Painting

    I've had a major focus on plein air painting this week.  Naturally that has resulted in a few link being dropped into this post.
    Next time you are participating in a plein air event, include one of the other plein air artists in your painting and send a photograph of the completed work to PleinAir™ Magazine.
    • Charley Parker highlighted the blog, titled Judsons Plein Air Journal, inclides short profiles of the featured artists, along with sample images and links to their websites.
      Printmaking
      Art Business & Marketing
      • Stapleton Kearns (Stapleton Kearns The demand surge and buy switch phenomenon - this is a Highly RECOMMENDED post.  As I commented, it just goes to show there's more to being an artist than painting and there's more to getting people to buy than painting a good painting. 
      Art Competitions
      Art Education

      Tips & Techniques
      Workshops
      Art Exhibitions

      Major galleries
      Art Societies
      Art Bloggers
      Pizza Chef by Johnny Morant - Tryon Gallery ( 7-17th of June)

      Art History
      Art Supplies
      Art Books
      • I'm going to be doing a post about oil painting books tomorrow.  Get your recommendations lined up please!
      Art Videos

      I posted a couple of videos from 2008 to The Art of the Landscape blog this morning - see Wolf Kahn - on painting and being a landscape painter

      Webware, websites and blogging
      and finally......

      This will be my last "who's made a mark this week?" until July. 

      I'm off to France on the 9th June and not returning until the 4th July.  Next weekend involves taking my cats to their holiday destination (my mother's house and garden) so I have half a chance of actually being able to get packed up and ready to go.

      However - for those of you interested in such things - you can follow what our painters' house party gets up to in France in Four Go Painting in Provence as we will be blogging while we're there.
      You can already check out my deliberations about what to take with me as we all start to get seriously geared up (as in lots of art materials) for some very focused creativity!  Sarah tells me she's planning five paintings a day!

      I certainly know from past painting holidays that there is nothing quite like a concentrated period without domestic interruptions to make some progress both in terms of creating art and developing skill and style.

      4 comments:

      1. I love the images you posted in this post. Congratulations to the fabulous artists.
        I am continually amazed at how you find the time to explore so many topics and such a wide range of artists, media and well... everything!! Thanks..

        ReplyDelete
      2. Those Encyclopaedia of .... - the square books on watercolour/printmaking/oils/drawing etc etc are pretty good to get you started. Obviously the one on oils.

        They show good examples, unlike some how-to books that show woolly generic boring images. Lots of techniques explained.

        Worth a look?

        ReplyDelete
      3. I have already suspected that you would be a great art marketing mentor/coach!! I think you have several strengths for this: Your background in both marketing and art, detailed knowledge about both, and clarity of thought! As you alluded to above, the only question is whether this is something that interests you - or would you rather put that effort into your own art..?! Whichever you choose - good luck!

        ReplyDelete
      4. This is awesome. I really love your blog.. it's very artistic and unique, and looks historical..hehe :)

        Great image credit for your post.. so deep!

        ReplyDelete

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