This article Gallery: Thomas Heatherwick's showstopping Olympic 2012 cauldron in The Architect's Journal has a number of photographs of how the installation works.
 |
| Photograph by CarlosVanVegas Creative Commons - some rights reserved |
In this video Thomas Heatherwick discusses his design. I personally love the idea that each copper petal came with a competing nation and will go back to that nation.
Plus this is a little bit about the man himself from his company website - which has images of his work - it's very impressive!
Thomas is an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA and a Senior Fellow at the Royal College of Art. He is the recipient of honorary doctorates from four British universities – Sheffield Hallam, Brighton, Dundee and Manchester Metropolitan. He has won the Prince Philip Designers Prize and in 2006, was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry.You can also see an exhibition of the work of Heatherwick Studio at the Victoria & Albert Museum until 30th September. It now includes a model of the cauldron and how it works.
Moving on - today's post contains items from the last two weeks. I'm trying to ease up on posting over the next month or so in order to (1) have a bit of a break which helps me keep my enthusiasm for blogging and (2) to accommodate a pinched radial nerve in my arm which is hovering between rather painful and excruciating!
Plus a big thank you to all those who pushed my subscribers above 4,000 this last week
Artists and Art Bloggers
Artists
- You can see Olympic Posters by various Leading Artists in various places around London at the moment. David Lee has something to say about them in his latest Leader Article for The Jackdaw - Olympic posters: our native genius
 |
| Olympic Posters for London 2012 in the Olympic Games Shop in John Lewis Westfield - which overlooks the Olympic Park and the Stadium |
- In an article in The Independent, Sarah Lucas - A Young British Artist grows up and speaks out
Creativity
- I liked Cindy Haase's (What Are You Really Selling?) take on String Theory and World Views and how this applied to making art
Drawing and Sketching
- James Gurney provides information about The Association of Medical Illustrators. He was invited to their conference to give a workshop
- Gayle Mason (Fur in the Paint) compares working on Colourfix and HotPressed Paper when developing an artwork with a watercolour underpainting topped with coloured pencils - see Maine Coon Cat on Colourfix
- I've been limbering up for the Olympics by Sketching the Olympic Park - in a new sketchbook by Seawhite. It's OK but it's not love at first sight.
 |
| The Olympic Park from the Third floor Gallery in John Lewis Westfield Stratford (left to right: The Entrance to the Park; The Aquatics Centre, the Orbit and the Olympic Stadium pen and ink and coloured pencils in NPG Seawhite Sketchbook |
- Uber Umbers and Other Colors from the Earth by Margret Short OPA on the Oil Painters of America Blog talks about different historical and natural pigments in oil painting
- Sophie Ploeg (The Art-ventures of Sophie Ploeg) has been featured in a technical focus article about painting fabrics in the July/August edition of Artists & illustrator Magazine
- James Gurney (Gurney Journey) has taken to posting videos of himself painting on his YouTube Video Channel - this post and video relate to Painting the Chapel Garden
- Today's Observer asks Can you make any kind of living as an artist? It uses 'artist' in the broadest sense however the context is useful.
Almost a third of visual and applied artists earn less than £5,000 a year from their creative work, according to a survey conducted last year by Artists' Interaction and Representation (AIR); 57% of the 1,457 respondents said that less than a quarter of their total income was generated by their art practices and only 16% of them paid into a private pension fund, raising questions about how professional artists will support themselves once they reach retirement age.
- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Thanks to Alyson Stanfield for highlighting a post by Liz Crain (Liz Crain Ceramics) A Frank Look at Money and Venues in which she unpicks the costs, the opportunity costs and the potential losses of selling work at different venues - it's what I'd call an eye-opener!
- Here's the follow up post What Is Your Art Business Costing You? by Alyson Stanfield (artbizblog)
- Plus another RECOMMENDED post by Alyson Stanfield about cataloguing your art - see
Peek Inside a Catalog of Your Art - Brian Sherin on Fine Art Views has a couple of posts which aim to unpick the romanticised image of the 'The Artist'. Neat idea - but maybe just one post could have covered it? See what you think
- Deconstructing the Romanticized Image of 'The Artist' - Part 1
- Deconstructing the Romanticized Image of 'The Artist' - Part 2
- In Top tips for a successful blog Katy Cowan of The Guardian shares her top tips on starting and running your own successful arts, culture or creative blog
- If you buy art books on Amazon...... provides:
- a link to a recommended read which expands on the 10 things Amazon won’t tell you
- a link to a new a new art book site Making A Mark Book List I've created. The site lists the art books I've bought this year (or at least it will be once I've finished it - I've still got lots to add in!).
- If you've been thinking of writing an art book and are pondering on the pitch to a publisher versus self-publishing try reading this post How I got a big advance from a big publisher and self-published anyway by Penelope Trunk (Penelope Trunk Blog). I have to tell you I have heard the identical story about the "well known publisher" from a very well respected author of art books. It made me think......
For example, in the age of the Internet, where most books are selling online, the cover needs to be very simple so that it works as a small image on Amazon. It’s hard to imagine going through months of design iterations for a cover that is going to be seen by most potential buyers as a photo on Amazon.
- Michael Chesley Johnson (A Plein Air Painter's Blog) has a new book available Paintings of the American Southwest which includes materials, techniques and a couple of demos.
Major Art Exhibitions
- Here's my review of Andy Warhol: The Portfolios Dulwich Picture Gallery
- See Olympic Athletes at the National Portrait Gallery is my post about third exhibition of Road to 2012 photographs of the British Olympic Athletes and the gamesmakers opened last week at the National Portrait Gallery.
- Here's a couple of reviews of the BP Portrait Exhibition also at the NPG
- Hitting the right tone (or tits first) is a Leader Article by David Lee (as seen in Show me the Monet) in The Jackdaw who starts with a point which is well worth making and yet is one often ignored by other commentators
As ever, this year is as popular with the public as any art exhibition, with large numbers jostling and genuinely engaging with the work eagerly discussing merits and demerits of more conspicuous pieces.
- You know where you are with Brian Sewell as soon as you read the title of the review for the Evening Standard - Wrong on so many levels: Brian Sewell on the BP Portrait Award
To this thrilling event 341,500 visitors flocked last year. Thrilling? Never quite that, there have indeed been years when the quality has been dire enough for me to suggest that the award should be put out of its miseryArt Societies
- I should have been to see a special exhibition by The Royal Watercolour Society which opened at the Bankside Gallery (next to Tate Modern) last week. Picturing Britain 2012 is on display for the duration of the Olympic Games. I'm hoping to get to see it this week.
- Buildings in the Landscape - Exhibition at Sunbury Shores Arts and Nature Centre
- Michael Chesley Johnson (A Plein Air Painter's Blog) provides a lot of very useful tips in this post about Taking Paintings to an Exhibition
- I wrote a post about How to make labels for an art exhibition
Art History and Art Museums and Galleries
Workshops
- James Gurney (Gurney Journey) has written an interesting blog post about Measures of Greatness which focuses on the French artoist Ernest Meissonier - and if you've never heard of him you are recommended to read the post (and the comments)
- This is just plain weird! The Guardian highlighted LA aesthetes fight pop-art billionaire Trustees of Museum of Contemporary Arts split by row over dumbing down of shows. The LA Times highlighted the fact that Ed Ruscha's exit leaves no artists on MOCA board of trustees [Updated]. This all follows Museum of Contemporary Art fires chief curator Paul Schimmel in June.
Their resignations, they said, could be read as a protest at the commercial, pop-culture direction of the museum at the expense of education and scholarship.Art Education
Workshops
- Last Sunday I went to a workship for The Next Generation (blog post to follow soon). This post The Next Generation - Portraiture for Teenagers summarises how the educational side of the National portrait Gallery promotes and supports learning about portraiture.
- Lori McNee (Lori McNee Fine Art and Tips) has a recommendation about cleaning brushes - see Clean Paint Brushes With This Quick Tip
- I had a whole post devoted to photographs of pigments - see Artist Quality Pigments & Artists' Colourmen
- Roz Stendahl (Roz Wound Up) has a very detailed review of Jack Richeson Recycled Watercolor paper in Inexpensive Jack Richeson Paper: Review
Techies
- Lorelle (Lorelle on Wordpress) is a veteran blogger who writes about blogging. One of ther recent posts was 7 Blogging Steps Even Veteran Bloggers Forget - never a truer word.......
- Blogger Buzz announced this week that it now possible to customise your posts with permalinks.
- What they actually mean is it is now possible to customise the URLs which act as permalinks for your blog post by using the custom URL option in settings.
- This is my version Techie: How to create a customised URL for your Blogger blog post - with pictures of what to do
- Yesterday I wrote about How to get people to subscribe to your blog - which focuses on how to get people signed up to subscribe.
 |
| The Lego Olympic Stadium |
Hi Katherine, thank you for all your wonderful posts! I loved the copper petals and reading about them.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy a well-earned break, and I hope your arm soon feels better! Best wishes, Katy