17 June 2012 - Who's made a mark this week?

London from Greenwich Park (exhibited 1809) - JMW Turner 
oil on canvas, 902 x 1200 mm
Collection:  Tate Britain

I've been channelling Turner this week......

First there was Matthew Collings excellent programme about the River Thames of JMW Turner - see BBC4 - Turner's Thames - which is still available to watch again on iPlayer!

Then I started to research all the different places he lived next to or near the Thames - which turned out to be rather more than I thought.

.....and finally I started to channel Turner on my iPad - below is my version of London from Greenwich  - a view which is very familiar to me.  Don't adjust your glasses or screens - I'm afraid that the quality of the picture hasn't translated very well from my iPad.

Artists and Art Blogs

I'm not quite sure whether Hannah Freeman realised that June 2012 was going to be quite so wet - but she certainly made an apt choice for the Guardian's Reader's Art - June.   The topic is "Weather"!  Those who live in the UK may well crack a wry smile at this point!

Botanical

• Various journals have been highlighting the exhibition of Ellsworth Kelly's Plant Drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  This is Green Fingers by Julie Belcover of the FT

Drawing and Sketching

• Back in May, Pam Johnson Brickell (Nature Journalling and Art) posted about Fast Sketching and Building a Journal Page on Artists Journal Workshop

Landscape

• This is an excellent post about Constable’s oil sketches by Charley Parker on Lines and Colors
• Stapleton Kearns (Stapleton Kearns) has a useful post about Dealing with summer greens.  I loved the bit about "smuggling reds"
• Tina Mammoser - who paints landscapes of the coast In the Studio, On the Shore - responded to last month's Poll with this post What Size to Paint?  How Art Size Matters and explains her own rationale for how she chooses what size to paint.

Printmaking

• The Printsy: Printmakers of Etsy Blog has what looks to me like an excellent explanatory blog post by Nancy Patton Wilson  (Nancy Patten Wilson Art) about Making a Deeply-Bitten Etching Printed as a Relief.  I'm a bit puzzled as to why there have been no posts since March.

Sculpture and Land Art

• Richard Long has given an interview - Richard Long: 'It was the swinging 60s. To be walking lines in fields was a bit different'
• Jonathan Jones wrote a thought-provoking post about lost art - Lost art comes back to haunt us - which highlighted a work 'House' by Rachel Whiteread in my local area which I saw before (as a house), during (its life as a cast of the inside) and after (the demolition)

Flatware No.2 | 18 x 18 | oil on panel

© Neil Hollingsworth

Still Life

• Neil Hollingsworth (Paintings in Oil) was featured in Charley Parker's Lines and Colors (for the third time!) - in this post Neil Hollingsworth (update 2012).  Neil updated his website last month and its URL is now http://www.neilhollingsworth.com.  He also has a two person show with M. Collier at Tree's Place Gallery on Cape Cod July 14 - 19th. 

Wildlife and animals

• I love the expression on the face of the cat in Watercolor: Did You Just Say "Out-of-Cat-Food"?  For those not familiar with Belinda del Pesco's blog Belinda del Pesco Fine Art she has great quotes about art and artists at the end of her posts.
• A parachuting rat by Banksy in Melbourne was destroyed by a builder's pipework

Art Books

For all those who think they might be creating an art e-book in the future there are issues to do with what route you choose to publication.  Here are a couple of interesting posts by Joe Konrath on A Newbie's Guide to Publishing:

• The Slippery Slope - or the role of Amazon in the book marketplace.  It's had 211 comments so far......
• Joe's Letter to the DOJ is the contents of Joe Konrath's letter in which he argues that the agency model sucks and Amazon has actually encouraged competition not killed it.

Art Business & Marketing

• Alyson Stanfield (ArtBizBlog) asked What is your opinion of co-op galleries? and got a lot of responses

Art Collectors & the Art economy

• Why do wealthy people invest in art? is my review of a Barclays report called "Profit or Pleasure? Exploring the Motivations Behind Treasure Trends" in relation to art.  A survey suggests the reasons why wealthy people invest in art are much more to do with the emotional reasons rather than financial ones
• Here's an article in the FT which lifts the shades on Fair selection panels: Behind the scenes

Art Competitions

Three posts from me this week about UK Art Competitions

• Threadneedle Prize 2012: Analysis of entries / selected artists - this year's Threadneedle Prize will see three times more artists than last year exhibit many more artworks (153 works compared to 59 works in 2011).
• Call for Entries: ING Discerning Eye 2012 This is the top art competition in the UK for people who like creating small works. The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition is created from small artworks selected by two art critics, two artists and two collectors from an open submission and invited artists.  However I do wonder whether all those submitting entries through the open competition are subsidising all the artists invited by the selectors to submit works. Surely the required ratio of open/invited ought to be more like 50:50? Especially as it's the open entry works which do so well in the sales!
• Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012: Call for Entries You have until 9 July 2012 to submit entries for the £12,000 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012.  Last year's exhibition was excellent.

This week I'll be at the National Portrait Gallery on Tuesday evening for the announcement of which of the four shortlisted artists has won the BP Portrait Award.  Then back again on Wednesday morning to photograph the exhibition and, if I remember to charge the battery, to film it too.

Art Exhibitions

Exhibitions in Europe

• Hopper opened at Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid last Tuesday and continues until 16 September.  Itcomprises a large selection of paintings by Edward Hopper and has been organised by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and Réunion des Museés Nationaux de France - Grand Palais.  

The exhibition brings together the largest and most ambitious selection of works by the US artist ever to be shown in Europe, with loans from major museums and institutions including the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, in addition to various private collections and with a particularly generous loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

• It will then travel to the Galleries Nationales at the Grand Palais in Paris.  Hopper in Paris will run from until  for an exhibition between 10 October 2012 and 28 January 2013

Exhibitions in the USA

• Paradise Found: Summer in California is at The Irvine Museum from now until September 20, 2012 features a selection of paintings by Californian Impressionists
• Abstract Drawings is an exhibition of 46 works on paper (see slideshow) from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition opened on Friday at the American Art Museum and runs until January 6th 2013.

Art Galleries

• Galleries are getting a lot better at making their images available to the public - and I'm going to be highlighting improvements on this blog.  I wish they were all as good as the NGA - Have you heard about NGA Images?
• This is the Museum of Realist Art - although to be honest I think that might more accurately be termed the Museum of American Realist Art
• Did you know the Musee d'Orsay in Paris now has an application for both iPhone and Android phones?
• Download the application from the iTunes store
• Download the application for Android

Art Education

• Robert Genn (The Painters Keys) recently highlighted Six compositional boo-boos
• Another conversation this month with Carol Marine (Carol Marine's Painting a Day)- A Conversation with Carol Marine and Leslie Saeta 06/07 by Artists Helping Artists | Blog Talk Radio
• I do like a tutor who takes the trouble to show prospective students just how he or she paints! This is Nigel Fletcher's slideshow for those wanting to learn more about watercolours.  Nigel's blog is Painting Adventures in the Limousin

Art Studio and Supplies

• I identified the product highlighted by a recent comment on my Making A Mark Reviewws blog - Studio Product: IKEA ALEX Drawer unit with 9 drawers. This has the same depth and same design as the IKEA Alex Drawer Unit for paper storage
• The Jackson's Art blog had an interesting post about the new Sennelier Nature sets

Techies

• I didn't finish reading this post - 26 Social Media Marketing Hidden Treasures You Never Knew Existed by Rachel Sprung - before adding it into this one! You are bound to find out something new!

and finally

I call this a wind installation - it's mesmerising.