8th January 2012 - Who's made a mark this week

I'm starting the first "who's made a mark this week" of 2012 with a summary of your posts about reviews of 2011 and plans for 2012.  The main reason I do this is because I find it absolutely fascinating how people approach these popular tasks.  Take a look and you may find yourself revising what you do at the end of this year!

Some of you combine posts (the "Janus post") and look backwards and forwards - and in that case I've included them in the first section below.

A bust of the two faces of Janus
- the Roman god associated with new beginnings and transitions
Location: Vatican Museum

The Janus Post - looking backwards and forwards

• Liz Steel (Liz and Borrowmini) has a sketchbook based post Looking back on 2011 and thinking about 2012
• I also did a "Janus" post - The Old Year (2011) and The New Year (2012) & 11 Principles (see right).  You can download the statement of principles from Flickr.

Reviews of 2011

Then we had the more straightforward reviews from (listed alphabetically):

• Jana Bouc (Jana Bouc) What I learned about art and life in 2011 - I really enjoyed this post - it wanted me to sit down over a hot drink with Jana and ask her for more.......
• Jan Blencowe (The Poetic Landscape) produced The Best Art Quips and Quotes of 2011.  What a great way to sum up the year.
• The Brooklyn Street Art blog produced Happy New Year which is an overview of the best images and the best posts for every month of 2011
• Lisa Call (Lisa Call - Textile Paintings) reflected on the word she used for 2011 Confidence in 2011 – A Review of my Word of the Year and then posted her 100 Accomplishments for 2011
• Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life)  2011 Review  Jeanette must be doing something right as she reports that 2011 has been one of my best years financially for art, despite a recession, with most work coming through online sales and commissions.
• Casey Klahn (The Colorist) has gone for the simple/difficult version - he's posted his six top pastel paintings from 2011- see 2011 - The Blog and Art Year in Review and then listed his six top posts and his six top events.  It's a very neat approach - I like it!
• Gayle Mason recapped her year in Review of 2011 in terms of what she achieved (eg Gayle was asked to sit on the Selection Committee of the Society of Feline Artists) and what she was less happy with.
• Ilaria Rosselli del Turco (Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco - News) had a Yearly Recap who was selected for the exhibition of a major art competition in the UK and was featured in The Artist magazine
• Anna Wilson Patterson did a post of all her Paintings 2011 - there's a lot to be said for this approach.  It's a bit like going to a solo exhibition.

New Year Resolutions

I spotted rather fewer plans for 2012

• Marion Boddy-Evans, the About.com Painting Guide, has ten New Year's Resolutions for artists
• Rose Welty believes in keeping it fluid with some general aims in mind What will I do in 2012?
• Gillian Holding (Gillian Holding) has come up with a new project for 2012 - the daily fail #thedailyfail - she explains it in this post #dailyfail #1
• Carol Lee Beckx (Art Matters) finds new beginnings really energising What's in store for 2012

For those who haven't yet made their plans try reading How to Have the Best Year of Your Life (without Setting a Single Goal)

So much for my intention to write shorter posts - this one in draft had weeks of material in it - half of which I've had to move forward to next week!

Here's the rest.......

Artists and Art Blogs


Obituaries

• Helen Frankenthaler, the Abstract expressionist artist associated with the colour field movement. has died age 83.   I hadn't quite realised before quite what an important role she had played - this is her obituary in the New York Times 

Drawing and sketching 

• The first SketchCrawl of 2012 is on January 21st.  Click the link to visit the forum to find out where others are sketching
• Enrique Flores (4 ojos) has been sketching in Mauretania - this is a fabulous post Mauritanian portraits
• I've been posting sketches on Travels with a Sketchbook in....... of the meals I ate in restaurants at the end of June/early July while on my own in Provence and then on the journey back to London - starting with the lunch I had in St Remy en Provence once I'd dropped Sarah off at Marseilles airport.
• Lunch at La Maison Jaune, St Remy de Provence
• Dinner and sunset at Le Mas des Vignes, Bedoin
• Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse
• Lunch Chez Guy in Gevrey-Chambertin

Lunch at La Maison Jaune, St Remy de Provence 29 June 2011
11.5 x 16.5", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Coloured pencils and pastels

• I'm sure I've come across Artists in Pastel before - but forgot to add it into Google Reader which I've now done.  One man reviews pastel artists. 
• The Colored Pencil Society of America (Colored Pencil Society of America News) published its prospectus for its 2012 Annual Exhibition just before Christmas.  See Get Ready for 2012 -it's almost here!

Botanical art

• The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew have a number of blogs - and this post Fascinating collection of Ray Cowell's illustrations comes to Kew is on the Library Art and Archives blog
• This post Thoughtful Observation on ArtPlantae Today is about artist Stephen Taylor who drew and painted the same tree 50 times between  June 2003 and August 2006.  There's an interview with Stephen Taylor on The Huffington Post.  Poignant.

Figurative Painting

• I'm using Figurative here to mean "including figures: - James Gurney  (Gurney Journey) has done a great series on the use of the Lay Figure Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; and Part 4.

Landscape

• Great to see somebody doing landscapes in charcoal - Jan Blencowe (The Poetic Landscape) has some new art supplies! See Charcoal Drawing and Paper Review
• Bill Guffey (Bill Guffey) has made two new videos of
• a demonstration he did last summer
• his Outdoor Paintings 2011 - which shows set-up and progress shots for different locations.

Plein Air Painting

• A nice post - with lots of images of paintings - by David Pilgrim (David Pilgrim) about a recent visit plein air painting in Venice.  It's a good time to go if you want avoid the crowds.  Congrats also to David who has had his candidature converted into an Associate Membership of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters - see Associate Membership of the ROI 
• Another post to add to the "the things which happen to plein air painters!". Sarah Wimperis recounts her New Year Shenanigans on her blog The Red Shoes

Printmaking

• I'm loving lots of the prints being produce by Amanda Briggs at Dear Ada.  The botanical/plaint inspired ones are my favourites

Sculpture

• Sculpture is becoming vulnerable to theft - the latest is the theft of a Barbara Hepworth sculpture from Dulwich Park - Hepworth sculpture stolen amid metal theft 'epidemic'
• I'm not sure if I've ever highlighted the blog of a stone sculptor before - but I like this one by Jennifer Tetlow - Stone Sculpture Journal.  Jennifer Tetlow lives in North Yorkshire and this is her website.  She works with Yorkshire Sandstone.  Sculptors look at the landscape a bit differently to the rest of us - take a look at Wind Worn Stone

Street Art

• Thanks to Malcolm Cudmore for highlighting this post about what can be achieved in a street with a piece of cardboard, a roll of packing tape and a razor - amazing! (Brooklyn Street Art) 

Crafts

• I don't normally feature craft blogs - but I think most people know I'm besotted with all matters to do with colour and I couldn't help salivating over the eco dying done by this textile artist on her blog Growing Colour - so do you know what colour Persian loganberries are? 
• I also love the idea behind this blog - and the fact that somebody has made an art out of Windowsill Arranging

Art business and marketing

• The Huffington Post had a great post which will make you think Twelve Art World Habits to Ditch in 2012
• Luann Udell - writing on Fine Art Views -  writes about Questions You Don't Have to Answer: Where is This Place? 
• Rhonda Hurwitz writes on Forbes about lessons you learn from creating art can also be applied to business Both sides of the easel: what life as an artist taught me about business
• Alan Bamberger has a new article for artists - he talks about Advantages to Making Art in Series vs One-by-One (new)

Art Collectors 

• Alan Bamberger of artbusiness.com writes excellent articles - this is his latest for art collectors - Warning: How Predatory Commercial Galleries Sell Art (new)
• The Forbes article Not A Billionaire? You Can Still Be An Art Collector received caustic comment by Mat Gleason on his blog here Art World Class Warfare

Art Competitions / Art Society - Calls for Entries

Calls for Entries

I did a major post this week about Major Art Competitions in the UK 2012 - which includes art competitions which are open to international entries.  Besides providing summaries of all the information that is currently available it also links to a couple of sites that I'll be updating throughout the year as more information becomes available:

• the page on this website devoted to Major UK Art Competitions 2012
• Art Competitions in the UK - Resources for Artists

UK Deadlines for registration or submissions this month include:

• John Moore Painting Prize 2012: Call For Entries - registration deadline 20 January 2012
• RWS Contemporary Watercolour (Open) Competition 2012 - Call for Entries / Making A Mark Call for Entries post - registration deadline 11 January 2012
• David Shepherd's Wildlife Artist of the Year 2012 - Deadline for entries - 21st January 2012 (see also Making A Mark - Wildlife Artist of the Year 2012 - Call for Entries (x2)
• Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour - Annual Open Exhibition (note call for entries unavailable for download) - receiving day 17th January 2012
• Visual Arts Scotland Annual Open Exhibition 2012 - receiving days 16th and 17th January 2012 

I'm expecting the Royal Academy to release the final details about the Summer Exhibition next week.

I've been notified about a couple of international biennial miniature print exhibitions in Canada.  These are

• BIMPE VII (Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition) in Vancouver, BC Canada - Deadline 1 April 2012
• Ottawa School of Art 4th International Miniature Print Biennial in Ottawa, ON Canada - Deadline 9 March 2012

Art Exhibitions

Major Exhibitions in the UK

I reviewed two exhibitions by artists who are painters - which finished today.  I really must try and remember to go to exhibitions earlier.  I'm not a fan of being in the hordes they get immediately after they open - and then I tend to think I have loads of time left........

The Gerhard Richter exhibition was interesting but I personally much preferred the Painting Canada exhibition

• Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven - Review
• Gerhard Richter: Panorama at Tate Modern - Review

David Hockney The Road Across the Wolds 1997
Oil on canvas 121 x 152 cm
Private Collection
Copyright David Hockney Photo credit: Steve Oliver

The marketing for David Hockney - A Bigger Picture exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts (opening 21 January) has started early.  The RA is recommending people book early - including Friends of the RA.

He was on Countryfile tonight giving a preview of the exhibition and showing where he paints and sketches in the Wolds of East Yorkshire. This is the iPlayer link for those who missed it.

I'm hugging my David Hockney postcards - courtesy of this week's Radio Times which also had an item about the Countryfile programme.

The four different covers of the Radio Times this week
showing the four Hockney images on postcards which could be found inside the back cover
- it's the same place in January, March and a couple of dates in April

David Hockney - an artist for all seasons is the interview given to the magazine while David Hockney gives Damien Hirst an art attack is the title of the article in which the 74 year old painter slates artists who relay on aides to produce their work. Many of Hirst’s assistant-made works of art will be on show at a Tate Modern exhibition this April.  Meanwhile Hockney's assistants drive the cars to the plein air location and set up the easel and painting tables.  I'm cheering from the sidelines! :)

A poster for his show at the Royal Academy reads: “All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally.”

Art Society Exhibitions - USA

• The Janice Griffiths Gallery in California will be presenting a World of Watercolor event between 5th February and 18th March 2012 which I'd absolutely love to see.  It comprises
• the 144th Traveling Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society's Travel Exhibition and 
• the travelling exhibition of the 91st Annual Exhibition of the National Watercolor Society at the same time - this show includes work by art blogger Keiko Tanabe
• Plus the 3rd annual Signature American Watercolor Exhibition.  (Online catalogue)

Art Galleries and Museums

• Mashable has an article about 5 Ways Museums Are Reaching Digital Audiences
• It mentioned crowdsourcing - but I don't think it had anticipated what the Victoria & Albert Museum is doing in using crowdsourcing.  Help us improve Search the Collections aims to help the Museum to find the best crops (or views) of photos of objects in the permanent collection on the museum's website.

Books

• I started to do my regular monthly update about the best selling and top rated art books in December (coming tomorrow) and decided that first I should do a post about Makingamark's Top Five Art Books in 2011, You can VOTE in a poll which asks you which of the five books is your personal favourite
• Dianne Mize (One Artist's Journey / Compose) has published a book In Praise of Mountain Waters and got it onto Amazon.

Art education

• "Looking At Wax" lecture by Joanne Mattera Thursday, 12 January 2012 at 19:00 at The Art Students League of New York
• Wolf Kahn lectures on 6 good reasons not to paint a landscape - with thanks to Loriann Signori for identifying this link to me

Art Supplies

• Jamie Williams Grossman (Hudson Valley Sketches) wrote posts about:
• Breaking in Your Stillman and Birn Alpha, Gamma or Epsilon Hardbound Sketchbook So It Lies Flat.  I must confess I just buy a Moleskine and it lies flat as soon as I open it!
• Shading Inks Testing, Reviews, and Selections has some good images of the colour of ink and some recommendations

Colour

• I don't normally comment on animation or illustration but found The Color Blue in Toy Story 3 by James Gurney (Gurney Journey) to be a very interesting post discussing how colour can be used conceptually - by Pixar in Toy Story 3

Conservation

• James Gurney (Gurney Journey) went to see an archivist at the Norman Rockwell Museum and came away with the Archivist’s Top Ten Tips - how many are you observing?
• Anybody else got any good tips about conservation or written a post about it?

Copyright

• Seth Godin (Seth's Blog) posted some Simple thoughts about fair use and commented on why the concept of "fair use" is important when discussing or considering copyright.  His post seems to be a response to this blog post Kind of Screwed which is about somebody ended up paying a lot of money for an alleged infringement of copyright which the person thought was fair use.
• This is a New York Times article - Apropos Appropriation and a photo collage of artwork that have been appropriated by other artists
• James Gurney (Gurney Journey) ponders on whether Norman Rockwell found stimulation in the work of other artists in Was Rockwell Looking?
• Michael Chesley Johnson (A Plein Air Painter's Blog) comments on Copyright and the Internet

Opinion Poll

• The January Making A Mark Opinion Poll has already got more than 100 responses - see POLL: First Impressions: what makes you leave an art website fast? and the poll in the side column if you want to vote.  We have four strong contenders for the feature you most hate on a website!

Internet, webware, websites and blogging

• Ning has been acquired by Glammedia, an online media provider, and there are changes to the TOS - which appear to be of no interest if you don't want advertising on your site.
• I've only just discovered PinInterest - anybody using it?
• Mashable has looked at the difference in eyetracking on the new and old Facebook profiles - see
  Facebook Timeline vs. Old Profiles: How People View Them Differently [STUDY]
• Apparently you can Use Your iPad to Scribble on Photos and Screenshots With Skitch For iOS 
• Lori McNee highlighted this post HOW TO Post Your Tweets At Optimal Times

and finally 

Writers and artists design money fit for modern times - in pictures - enjoy!