15th January 2012 - Who's made a mark this week?

Woldgate Woods, 21, 23 & 29 November 2006, 2006 by David Hockney
Oil on 6 canvases, 182 x 366 cm
Courtesy of the Artist | Copyright David Hockney | Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

The PR machine for the major exhibition David Hockney - A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy of Arts is now in overdrive.  David Hockney is now all over the Television, radio and newspapers - which if, as I do, you happen to support people who paint landscapes plein air and think developing skills in drawing is very important is grand!

Here are some links to recent items about Hockney and the exhibition

• You can see some of the paintings in the exhibition in a slideshow on the BBC website - Natural phenomena: David Hockney at the Royal Academy 
• There was a great article in the Guardian yesterday - David Hockney: a life in art
• Plus Martin Gayford comments on Hockney's preference for some of the traditions of the artistic life - see Hockney Snipes at Hirst, Says Bring Back Boozing: Martin Gayford
• There's an hour long Radio 3 programme in which Rachel Campbell-Johnston talks to David Hockney at his Bridlington home and his studio ahead of a major exhibition at the Royal Academy is available on iPlayer Catchup - see Sunday Feature - New Ways of Seeing with David Hockney.  It's definitely well worth a listen (I have it playing now!) There's also a Radio Times article.

Importantly for UK readers anybody planning to see this exhibition, the bookings for this exhibition are apparently currently exceeding those for the recent Van Gogh blockbuster exhibition.  Given the recent hiatus over at the National Gallery (see The Da Vinci Queue) if you'd like to view it I really would recommend booking

I'm seeing the exhibition at the preview on Tuesday.  However my sister is paying a flying visit from Australia in early February and - despite the fact I'm a friend of the RA and can normally visit exhibitions without queuing or buying a ticket - I've had to book a slot to take her.  The idea is to avoid exhibitions being spoilt due to over-crowding.  I can confirm it's very easy to book online and print your tickets at home.

The exhibition is organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Art and Art Blogs
First I have a confession to make.  I went to the Guildhall Art Gallery this afternoon instead of writing this post so that I could see an exhibition I'd forgotten to go and see.  I know you'll all understand!  Thanks to Charley Parker for reminding me via his post on John Atkinson Grimshaw.

Drawing and sketching

• Marion Boddy Evans (About.com - painting) provides us with the opportunity to look inside Barbara Rae's sketchbooks

Landscape

• Loriann Signori has an interview with M Katherine Hurley (Part 1 and Part 2) who paints in both oils and pastels.  She started a blog a while ago - Passions on Paper and Canvas - but it stopped in 2010 - more's the pity

Nature and Wildlife

• Irene Brady (Nature Drawing with Irene Brady) is back nature journaling again - this time in Belize
• Back from Belize, with lots to say
• Nature Journalising in Belize
• Nature Journaling in Belize 2
• I love it when I get a story along with sketches - you get bird dramas on A death in the park 
  from Sketching in Nature by Debbie Drechsler

Painting

• Check out Rob Adams Painting blog - and his record of A Wet and Windy Yule in the Burren in the far West of County Clare.  He continues in Oils from Ireland and Abstract Musings.  I like people who write about painting and Rob has been added into my Google Reader
• Your Paintings has launched on Twitter with the aptly named @Your_Paintings and the tweeting will be done by The Public Catalogue Foundation

It feels a bit odd to highlight with two people who aren't blogging right now.

• I spotted an artist on Charley Parker's Lines and Colors blog who I'd not seen before. Probably because she's not written many blog posts.  I took a look at her blog and Irena Roman (Irena Roman Watercolors) paints delicious transparent watercolours.  She's also just been made a signature member of the American Watercolor Society.
• I've come across various blogs which are reviewing painters - however almost all seem to run out of steam.  One such is the Daily Painter Review

Art Exhibitions

Exhibitions in Major Art Galleries and Museums - London / UK

• On Wednesday I posted my annual post about Major Art Exhibitions in London in 2012.  If you know someone who's coming to London you might want to send them a link.
• This year I beat the Guardian/Observer who today posted Hockney, Freud, Turner and Hirst: art blockbusters of 2012
• Meanwhile the Telegraph has looked outside London with The Best Exhibitions of 2012

Exhibitions in Major Art Galleries and Museums - North America

• Bloomberg reports that attendance figures at the major museums in New York have been a mixed bag:
• visitors to exhibitions at the Met are up - to 5.6 million - but Alexander McQueen generated a lot of that
• while MOMA's visitors are dropped 11 percent last season to 2.8 million.  Bloomberg suggests that the previous shows were hard acts to follow.  I suggest Bloomberg takes a look at the visitor numbers for Tate Modern (5 million visitors in 2010) - see Top 10 Art Galleries and Museums
• For some reason I can't fathom, annual listings of upcoming exhibitions seems to be confined to the UK.  Maybe it's something to do with distance - or maybe my browsers got altogether too personalised!  Where's the best place to look for listings of the don't miss exhibitions?
• Yahoo news came up with North American art exhibitions in 2012

Calls for Entries - Art Competitions

• It's too late to enter the RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition 2012 because you needed to have registered by last Wednesday.  The exhibition will be at the Bankside Gallery 24 February - 14 March (and today I saw a sign saying that Blackfriars Station reopens towards the end of February which helps make visiting the Bankside that much easier)
• However you have until the end of next week to submit entries for:
• John Moore Painting Prize 2012: Call For Entries registration deadline 20 January 2012
• David Shephard's Wildlife Artist of the Year 2012 Deadline for entries - 21st January 2012 (more information about past competitions)

Calls for Entries - Art Societies

• Tuesday 17th January is the receiving day for the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour
• The Colored Pencil Society of America have announced the artists selected for the Explore This! 8 - which is an online exhibition of multi-media art involving coloured pencils.

Art Society Exhibitions

• The Mini Picture Show at the Bankside Gallery closes next weekend.  It includes works by members of the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers
• If you like wood engraving it's worth making a trip to:
• London and the Bankside Gallery to see the 74th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers.  The work on show is of a very high quality and I find it difficult to leave without buying something.  
• Manchester to see an exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers Archive - which opens tomorrow

Art Education


Art Holidays / Workshops / Classes

• Karin Jurick (A Painting Today) has A Painting A Day - San Francisco workshop in April
• I spotted an art holiday with a difference on Mark Hanson's blog Painting my way through life - see  A Painting and Yoga Holiday in Normandy, France - August 2012!!!
• Deborah Paris has her Winter / Spring 2012 Schedule of regular online classes up on her blog Deborah Paris Workshops and Online Classes

Tips and techniques

• Sadie Valeri (Sadie J Valeri) published her tips and techniques about varnish back in April 2011 

Art Critics

• My post A 5 minute interview with Brian Sewell references a BBC video and his autobiography and some other little known facts about the UK's most controversial art critic

Art History

• This is the website of The Association of Art Historians 

Art Studios

• Sadie Valeri has a New Studio for the New Year - in which she will be offering a programme of classes and workshops

Copyright

• On Tuesday I wrote about the Consultation on Remedies for Copyright Small Claims (USA).  This affects every artist in the USA who's reading this blog and sells work.  ArtInfo commented on the iniaitive in Is It About to Get Much Easier for Artists to Bring Copyright-Infringement Lawsuits?
• ArtInfo also had an article about The British Art Market Federation's Chairman on the "Corrosive Effect" of Droit de Suite.  All that's changed is that an artist's family can now enjoy this benefit as well as the artist.
• Andy Warhol's appropriattion of the artwork of other artists/brands appears to be coming home to roost.  Bloomberg reports that the Velvet Underground have filed a complaint of infringement - about a banana design on an album!

Opinion Polls

• I knew you liked James Gurney's book Color and Light - but I was absolutely amazed to find that of the 5 top art books sold last year, this was the runaway winner in the poll I ran.  85% of you love "Color and Light" !
• You can respond to the January POLL: First Impressions: what makes you leave an art website fast - it's in the right hand column.

Webware, internet and blogging

• It happens to the best of us - there were reports today that the Twitter account of the Huffington Post got hacked and tweeted rather differently to usual.......

and finally

• Surprise, surprise! Artists are slightly more likely than average to live in top 1% households in terms of income according to the New York Times - The Top 1% - what jobs do they have?