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Sunday, September 02, 2012

2nd September 2012 - Who's made a mark this week?

At last Daily Paintworks has found a good use for Pinterest - assuming all the artists are happy about having their artwork pinned!  This is the Daily Paintworks Pinterest account - with 30 boards for different categories of art.  The artwork posted to Daily Paintworks is assembled in groups ready for people to view and repin.  It also is a great way of looking at all the art on the same sort of topic.

24 of the 30 galleries on the Daily Paintworks Pinterest Board
There were two things which struck me.  First how much better the original paintings are than that normally seen in similar galleries on places like eBay - where many people also sell 'daily paintings'.

I also found it interesting to see which were the top ten categories of art pinned DPW - although it's difficult to tell whether this is a product of the artwork which people like to produce or the artwork that people like to buy.  In other words is this generated by the artists or by the art collectors?

The top ten categories of artwork pinned by DPW are:
  1. Paintings For Your Kitchen 774 followers, 351 pins
  2. Floral Art 766 followers, 218 pins
  3. Art for Your Living Room 757 followers, 216 pins
  4. People in Art 760 followers, 146 pins
  5. Feathered Friends in Art 727 followers, 119 pins
  6. Bright and Cheerful Art 773 followers, 100 pins
  7. Nautical and Seascape Art 759 followers, 98 pins
  8. Paintings for Your Office 746 followers, 90 pins
  9. Horses in Art 736 followers, 89 pins
  10. Animals in Art 736 followers, 86 pins
The Tate Gallery has also got a Pinterest Board - this is The Tate's Pinterest Top Ten Pin List
However this is also a strictly retail operation!

For me Pinterest makes complete sense if it's set up by retailers who want their images online.  A contrary view about the activities of Pinterest is expressed in the Copyright section below. 

Artists and Art Blogs

Drawing and Sketching
  • Every now and again - I let out a little whoop if and when an organisation or a person who I really like and admire "likes" my Facebook page.  Today Bill Creevy "liked" my page and I was almost speechless!  Bill Creevy works in pastels (I love his surfaces and textures) and oils and I've been recommending Bill's books for years!  See "The Pastel Book" and my Book Review: The Pastel Book plus "The Oil Painting Book"
  • Peggy Macnamara: Elements of Drawing/Watercolor is the art blog of Peggy Macnanara, Artist-in-Residence, Field Museum of Natural History and an Adjunct Associate Professor (2001-present), School of the Art at the Institute of Chicago. Here's her essay/blog post on Drawing-Learning to See Parts in Relationship and Grasp Composition.
The thing about drawing is that it is about more than drawing. When you learn to draw, you are learning to see parts in relationship.
Vita Sackville West's Tower at Sissinghurst Castle Garden
pen and ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook, 11" x 14"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell
Dry Media: Pastels and Coloured Pencils
Painting
Wildlife Art
  • James Gurney (Gurney Journey) highlighted natural science illustration in Focus on Nature exhibition. Given the scope of this competition/exhibition I thought I might do a follow up post about this.
  • Irene Brady (Nature Drawing and Journaling Trips with Irene Brady ) is Back from South Africa
  • I'm going to blog this over the course of the next several days, as I'm still sorting the dross from the 2500 photos I took. The photos were in addition to sketch/journaling 43 pages in my sketchbook, with a number of additional pages partly begun and in line for finishing before I can put it up online.
Art Business & Marketing

Selling Art - the Annual Opinion Poll
  • 2012 Poll Results: What's the best place to sell art? (Part 1) contains the responses to my annual survey asking about where were the best places to sell art.  
    • This time I asked people to respond to two surveys and identify which generated the most revenue and which, after expenses were deducted, generated the most profit.  Both  charts have also been posted to my Facebook Page for those who'd like to look at a larger version.  (If you've liked my Facebook Page they should pop up in your news feed)
    • There will be another post this week looking at the five year trend re best places to sell art. I was gobsmacked to find that The art Shop on eBay has lost over 60% of its traffic in the last year.
Selling Art - Art Fairs
The Sublime Art Studio - exhibiting artwork by Nicole Caulfield

Other Art Business Matters
Art Collectors and Art Economy
  • Recently, there were articles about Charles Saatchi and the continued underwhelming response he has had to his offer to gift his £30 million art collection to the state. The Telegraph described it as Charles Saatchi’s £30 million gift to the nation goes begging.  Whereas Jonathan Jones told us all Why it's wrong to reject Charles Saatchi's gift to the nation.  I have a financial perspective on it. I think arts commentators to date have neglected to consider the massive tax advantages of making a gift to the nation and the massive revenue implications for the galleries which take it on.  I'm not surprised that any publicly funded art gallery wants to be "picky" about which works they take when the gift does not come with an endowment to pay for its upkeep.  Therein lies the rub - is it a gift - or is it a way of avoiding the big bill for looking after a collection?
Art Competitions
Art Debate
Art Exhibitions

Exhibitions ending soon
I'm trying to be about more alert to telling people about exhibitions before they happen!

Exhibitions in London
Printmakers, who create Etchings, Lithographs and Linocuts, work directly onto the printing surface, using drawings,sketches and even paintings for reference. This is not a method for reproduction of an original, but a "conversation with the medium", a creative process that with time and expertise gives a unique result.
Art Societies
Exhibitions in New York
Focus on Nature XII is a juried exhibition of natural and cultural history illustration that features artwork from around the world. Artists depict biological, geological, and archeological subjects using a wide range of media, from traditional watercolor to recently developed digital techniques. The basis for selection of these works is scientific accuracy, technical skill, aesthetic qualities, and originality.
Upcoming Exhibition in France 2013
  • Les Pastellistes de France June 29-September 1, 2013 in Feytiat, Limousin   Sally Strand and a few other artists has been invited to represent the Pastel Society of America as guests of honor at the most prestigious annual exhibition by the oldest and largest pastel association in France. 
Art Education

Art Books and e-publishing
Classes and Workshops
Tips and Techniques
    If you don’t have a studio with north light, you need artificial lighting. Period. You can’t properly paint your canvas without accurate light.
      Art Materials and Supplies 
      • Pastel Demo...I found my Stan Sperlak Pastels! Karen Margulis.  I'd never heard of these before - but it turns out on reading that this is another box of pastels selected by an artist. I like the idea but I rarely come across anything informative about artists selections online.  Would that it were different!
      • The Jacksons Art Supplies Newsletter highlighted a FREE online colour mixing tool created by Golden Acrylics.  It works on any browser, Mac, PC, iPad or Android. The interface was designed to work on touch screens so artists can use it on tablets right at their canvas. It's both fun and frustrating - try it and you'll see what I mean
      • This is the Ampersand blog - what i like about it is that it does great interviews with artists who use their products and provides decent technical posts such as Sealing and Varnishing Art Work on Ampersand Panels
      Copyright
      Techies
      and finally......

      You will all have read or heard by now about how an octagenarian lady Cecilia Gimenez approached decided to give the Christ painting "Ecce Homo" by Elias Garcia Martinez a "restoration".

      Apparently thousands are now flocking to the church to be photographed next to the painting!

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