8th July 2012: Who's made a mark this week?

This week Making A Mark and I were featured in the Guest Blogger spot on the UK website The Good Web Guide - which likes to characterise itself as "the ‘thinking man’s google’."  If you missed it, here's How To Make A Mark on Art; by acclaimed art blogger Katherine Tyrrell... complete with my best profile shot!

Artists and Art Blogs

Portfolio of Mary Fedden's artwork at the Portland Gallery

Mary Fedden 1915 - 2012
I missed the announcement of the death of Mary Fedden RA age 96 in the third week of June.  She has work in collections all over the world and has been a very popular artist up in the UK. Composition and use of colour kept her work contemporary and avoiding accusations of cuteness.  Here are her obituaries.  I never knew she used to teach David Hockney.

• The Telegraph - Mary Fedden
• The Guardian - Mary Fedden obituary plus Mary Fedden – a life in pictures

she remained rooted in the European tradition of belle peinture (beautiful painting), in its literal translation: a middle-class sweetness of subject elevated beyond sentimentality by its exactness in drawing, nice judgment of texture and freshness derived from high artifice.

You can see Mary Fedden's artwork at the Portland Gallery 

Drawing and Sketching

• Fred Hatt (Drawing Life) has written a great post about Different Strokes - in fact I'd go so far as to say one my favourite type of posts.  That's because....

In this post I present a goodly selection of mostly monochrome sketches and prints by a wide diversity of masterly mark-makers. I’ll let the works speak for themselves and leave it to you to contemplate the contrasts among them.

• Playing, Watching, and Drawing Tennis was posted by Urban Sketchers London latest correspondent Nathan Brenville (Tinmouse).  He watched Andy Murray play his quarter final match on Wednesday - sketchbook in hand! He also sketched during the long wait (and the rain) for the return tickets for the Centre Court. He queued from 10am until 5pm when he got in just in time to see the match start to go Murray's way.
• Loriann Signori has a post which attempts to answer questionas asked of her about her use of sketchbooks - see sketchbook questions answered and nova scotia
• I've been reminiscing about the lavender in Provence last year and finally got round to posting my sketches of it
• Abbaye de Senanque and the Lavender Fields
• Sault and the Lavender Fields of the Nesque

Sault and the Lavender Fields
16 ½” x 12”, 29cm x 42cm, pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in
Moleskine A3 size Folio Sketchbook

Landscape

• Mitchell Alabala has written a post advising Composition Before Color — Considerations in the First Phases of Plein Air Painting based on a a painting demonstration at Pacific Northwest Art School on Whidbey Island, Wash.  This highlights:
• value studies
• designing with shapes
• the value of the thumbnail
• and finally - how to start a painting

Painting

• Daniel Maidman is an artist with a studio in Brooklyn who also writes for The Huffington Post but also has his own blog Daniel Maidman.  He writes some interesting posts such as Cyan is the Loneliest Color
• He has a fan called Claudia who is a professional artist's model with a blog called Museworthy.  I liked her most recent post You Call That a Model?

Printmaking

• Jeanette Jobson wrote in Taraxacum Duet about her recent experiement was experimented with ideas for printmaking using plant materials  

Art Business & Marketing

• Tax matters: I probably need to write a blog post about this, however this is a "heads-up" for anybody who is bartering without any exchange of money.  It's very important to CHECK the tax aspects where you live.  Tax avoidance can have hefty penalties.  If you live in the UK this is what Her Majesty's tax collectors have to say on the subject - Part-exchanges, barters, contras and VAT
• The RedDotBlog  is a gallery blog which writes about art business issues.  It has recently been running an Art and the Internet Survey which looked at how artists are using the Internet to market their art.  They are now posting an analysis of the results
• These are the preliminary results
• and this post has more results

Among artists who are selling a high volume of art, 39% had updated within the last week and a full 69% had updated within the last 4 weeks.

• Over on About.com Painting Marion Boddy-Evans has been writing about the options available to artists looking to sell their paintings in Where to Sell Your Art

Art Collectors and Art Economy 

• Souren Melikian has written about what it's like Inside the Mind of an Art Dealer for the New York Times.  It's a commentary on an individual who has chosen to reveal all the transactions which go on behind the scenes rather than in the gallery or auction room.

Art Books

• Carole Pivarnik is maintaining a blog Doggitude which tells the story about how she is producing an ebook about humorous dog art

Art Competitions

• These are the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012: Selected Artists
• Two posts about the BP Travel Award this week:
• BP Travel Award 2011: Jo Fraser travels to Peru
• I always think to win a competition for something like a travel award you really have to come up with something different.  In Carl Randall wins BP Travel Award 2012 I explain how Carl has come up with a new twist on an old theme.

Art Exhibitions and Art Festivals

Jeanette Jobson's Gyotaku prints
at the Reflections on Cod exhibition

• Reflections on Cod - An exhibit marking the 20th Anniversary of the Cod Moratorium - from Exhibit runs from July 2nd – 28th at Five Island Art Gallery on Newfoundland.  It includes three pieces of gyotaku by Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life)
• The Art Daily magazine highlighted last week that Arts organisations collaborate on affordable smartphone app development for the future of festivals
• The RedDotBlog had a useful post back in May about Collective Wisdom | Tips to Succeed at Art Fairs and Festivals

Art education

• The free Drop-In Drawing Session at The National Gallery on 13 July 2012 (18:30-20:30) will be taken by David Gentleman, the artist behind the drawings in the Underground station at Charing Cross.  He will share his techniques for sketching and painting London. Then put it in to practice yourself with drawing in the Gallery!
• Ann Kullberg and Nicole Caulfield (Nicole Caulfield Fine Art) are going to be on a cruise ship in the Caribbean in February - this link explains the details of another of Ann's regular workshop cruises

Copyright

• Kimberley Santini (Painting a Dog a Day) has written an absolutely knock-out letter addressed to all copyright thieves - Dear Copyright Thieves.  It's a MUST READ and I suggest you copy the post, print it out and pin it to your pin board.  Next time it happens to you, you'll know where to find it!
• Did you know that the RedBubble website has a Copyright Protection Group

Opinion Poll

• This month's opinion poll addresses the question Do you and your art have a presence on Facebook?

Techies

• Lots of artists are saying that being on Facebook is now making a big difference to their profile online - and their profitability for those selling online.  My post Artists on Facebook - The Scope and The Rules examines what you can and can't do on Facebook.
• Last month Independent web analytics firm StatCounter confirms milestone as Chrome overtakes IE globally for first calendar month - first the day, then the week and now the month!

The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats says that Chrome surpassed IE for the first full day back in Marchand the achievement of the weekly milestone was widely reported on 21 May.

and finally......

Sir Michael Parkinson (who is a legendary chat show host in the UK) told a very funny anecdote at the BP Portrait Awards Ceremony about the other name he's known by - which I happened to capture on video as I was stood right next to him.



Jonathan Yeo's portrait of Michael Parkinson is in the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection - see collection entry