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Monday, December 05, 2011

Making A Mark: End of Year Review 2011


Today I'm starting the SIXTH END OF YEAR REVIEW since my first in December 2006.

As always I start with a plan of what's going to happen this month and, most importantly, how YOU can get involved with nominating and voting for the Making A Mark Awards!


The Plan of Action

Every year, there are three parts to the end of year review.
  • The Making A Mark Awards 2011 - which start this week with nominations by you! 
  • An overall review of 2011 - and what this has meant for art on the internet and the art business. 
  • My own Personal End of Year Review of 2011
This is quite complicated and I now have a timetable for December of what happens when!  There will also be normal posts and in the next week or so we'll also have a review of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters 124th Annual Exhibition, the Call for Entries for the BP Portrait Award and a post to celebrate six years of blogging.

The Making A Mark Awards 2011 - Nominations

The Making A Mark Art Blog Awards are about celebrating the artwork we see on independent art blogs - and the valuable contributions made in adding to the sum of our knowledge about art - in all its different practices and aspects.  The awards are
  • for art bloggers, 
  • the nominations come from art bloggers and 
  • the voting is limited to art bloggers

This is the third year in which I've opened the process of nominations to readers of Making A Mark.
  • YOU can NOMINATE your favourite blog (or picture) for that award for all the various awards - and there's a lot! (See  page on this blog)
  • YOU also get to VOTE on the awards for the best artwork on a blog
    • the votes generate the winner for each category and determines which artist blogger wins the top award of Best Picture of the Year
    • Both those nominated and those identified as winners in the past have told me that the Making A Mark Awards results in an awful lot of subsequent extra traffic to their blogs.
  • Plus I always link to the blogs of those who nominate (unless you are a spammy infiltrator when I ignore you and your nomination!)
PLEASE SHARE the fact these awards are happening with your blog readers and fellow art bloggers.  (Can I suggest you use #MAM for Twitter)

Please wait for the specific posts before telling me who you want to nominate - via a comment on this blog.

Please also note that this year there is a new rule.  Anybody who has won a prize in the last 3 years (ie 2008-2010) is not eligible for a prize in 2011.

Karin Jurick will be smiling when she reads this - I had visions of Karin going for a hat trick after she won Best Picture of the Year on an Art Blog in 2009 and 2010.  We both agree that we'd like to see everybody getting an opportunity to win a prize.

I'll be listing previous winners of each category when I post the invite to nominate - which is another reason to wait until I ask for nominations!

The Making A Mark Awards 2011 - Best Picture on an Art Blog

NOMINATIONS for The Making a Mark Prize for Best Picture on an Art Blog

Last year I highlighted the value of telling people how much you appreciate their work (seeWhy be an art blogger?). This month you can make a difference by sharing your perspective on the people whose work you admired and valued in 2011.

Invites to nominate for the different categories associated with the Best Picture Award will start being posted TOMORROW.  The order of call for entries for nominations is as follows:
  • 6th December - Best Portrait / Figures
  • 8th December - Best Landscape
  • 9th December - Best Still Life
  • 10th December - Best Nature (botanical, natural history or wildlife) 
  • Nominations for the other awards will follow in the week commencing 12th December (see list of previous award winners below)
But you can start thinking about who you want to nominate now!

VOTING for The Making a Mark Prize for Best Picture on an Art Blog
  • On Saturday 24th December I will post the nominations received:
    • The MaM Prize for best rendition of person or persons
    • The MaM Prize for the best portrayal of a place
    • The MaM Prize for best still life
    • The MaM Prize for best celebration of nature
  • The Short List of Pictures in each category will be posted on Monday 26th December Voting for the Best Artwork of the Year prizes
    • starts on 26th December
    • closes a minute after midnight on 30th December
  • The Making A Mark (MaM) Awards RESULTS 
    • will be posted in two posts on Thursday 29th and Friday 30th December
    • the last award to be announced relates to The Making a Mark Prize for Best Picture on an Art Blog
There are no prizes per se - but you do get a nifty pic for your side column!

I do draw the line at active lobbying for votes when we get to the voting stage - especially on sites which are not art blogs.  Such activity is likely to get a nomination cancelled - as happened last year.   I'll make this clearer as things progress.

The Making A Mark Awards 2011 - The rest!

Below you can see the rest of the awards. The names of the people who have won these awards if an impressive line up

The Best Art Blog Project Virtual Challenge Cup


    The FAQs and Answers Really Useful Medal - for sharing useful information (for free)


    The Make Me Think Gong

    The previous winners of this 'gong' continue to provide many posts which are both interesting to read and also make me think. They are:


    The Travels with a Sketchbook Trophy (which absorbs the 'Get Off Your Blogging Bottom and Sketch' Brass Plate)
    Previous winners have been:
    • 2006 - Laura Frankstone (Laurelines) won the “Travels with a Sketchbook Award primarily for blogging her sketches of Paris in October
    • 2006 - Julie Oakley won the “Get off your Blogging Bottom and Sketch”Brass Platefor her One Mile from Home blog).
    • 2007 - Martha (Trumpetvine Travels) won the new combined award
    • 2008 - posthumously awarded to Cindy Woods. (Learning Daily)
    • 2009 - Enrique Flores (Cuatro cosas)
    • 2010 - Liz Steel (Liz + Borromini, Sydney Australia)


    The Painting a Day Stickability Shield. Previous winners include:


      The Painting Plein Air Plus Prize. This award has previously been won by


        The Going Greener Gong (artwork about nature / with a green theme)


          “The Moose” Award for the best animal in an illustrated blog - named after the first winner of this award - who was a cat! The animal can be wild or domestic. Previous winners have been:


          The “Tales from the Frontline” Mention in Despatches / The “Amusing Musings” Trophy for keeping me amused / telling tales from the studio frontline.

          Previous winners of this prize are:
          • 2006 - Ruth Phillips (Meanwhile, here in France) won The “Tales from the Frontline” Mention in Despatches AND 2006 - Hugh McLeod (Gaping Void) and Maggie Stiefvater (Greywaren Art) won the Amusing Musings Trophy 
          • 2007 - Dermott (I am Dog Hear Me Snore) the Australian Old English Sheep Dog who lives in Tuscany with Mr and Mrs We Spent a Long Time Boofing This Dog - won both! 
          • 2008 - Tracy Helgeson (Works by Tracy Helgeson) plus Doug and Ginger and all those who helped with the new studio 
          • 2009 - Walt Taylor aka Wally Torta and the rest! (Crackskull Bob) 
          • 2010 - no award 


          The Most Gorgeous Mouthwatering (MGM) Studio of the Year - for the most improved studio.


            The Best Book by an Art Blogger Blue Ribbon - for the most helpful book written/produced by an art blogger

              Review of Blogging and Art in 2010

              This is where I look at my predictions predictions for 2010, comment on the impact of things nobody expected (now what were they?) and generally try and come up with some predictions for 2011.
              • A review of the blogging practices of artists and illustrators in 2010 - what has stayed the same and what has changed from the perspective of the individual art blogger - to be posted on Thursday 22nd December 2011 
              • Blogging art within the context of changes in the wider art economy - to be posted on Friday 23rd December 2011 
              Personal End of Year Review of 2011 and Plans for 2012

              The end of the calendar year is a good time for a review.
              • On 31st December 2011 I'll be posting My Personal Review of 2011 and what I got up to and what I achieved 
              • This is followed on 1 January 2012 by the Grand Plan for 2012! One day I'll get realistic about what's possible! 
              OK - that's what's happening and when.  Now all I need is a lot of good nominations!
              on

              2 comments:

              1. Casey KlahnTuesday, December 06, 2011

                Here is an early response, but we are almost half the world apart by time zones.

                It pleases me to nominate Antti Rautiola, for Best Portrait/Figure. His image, http://rautiola.blogspot.com/2011/03/girl-with-lambs.html
                62 x 90 cm
                Oil on canvas 2011may be found here: http://rautiola.blogspot.com/2011/03/girl-with-lambs.html

                Mr. Rautiola, of Helsinki, paints his three daughters as subjects, and the results are intimate, and at the same time they have an "everyman" aspect. The angular lighting of his scenes adds to this effect.

                The loose application of his paint keeps these otherwise personally important scenes at the viewer's level, and so there is no barrier between the viewer and the ideas the artist is presenting.

                Simply wonderful.

                This Girl with lambs painting adds a herd of domestic animals to the child scene. The lambs are as attentive to what the girl brings as I am to what the artist does!

                ReplyDelete
              2. Making A MarkTuesday, December 06, 2011

                Thanks Casey

                It helps me if nominations come in on the related posts inviting nominations. But if you think you might forget do use this post too!

                ReplyDelete

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