 |
| Killing Time by David Poxon watercolour, 18"x27" Finalist at the Shanghai Watercolour Biennial © David Poxon |
Artists from 62 countries this year entered watercolour paintings for the The Shanghai Zhujiajiao International Watercolour Biennial Exhibition - the only international watercolour competition held in China. The aim of the competition is to develop the art of watercolour painting in China by bringing them into contact with the finest watercolour artists from around the world - and their paintings!
The artists who painted the 15 paintings with the most votes are awarded a cash prize of CNY30,000 (around US$4,700) plus a return economy class airfare to Shanghai to attend the opening accommodation and meals to enable them to attend the opening of the exhibition in November. The winner of the competition gets a full set of 232 Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors Collection worth nearly $4k.
David Poxon RI NWS this week sent me a list of award winners - and he's one of them. All except Charles Reid will be attending the opening celebration in November.
- Anna Ivanova Russia
- Andrew Kish III USA
- Alexander Kryushyn Ukarine
- Dean Mitchell USA check out the website - I've not seen one with a home page like that before! You can watch a documentary about him and his art - I love his paintings of people - he reminds me of Wyeth
- Ross Paterson Australia
- David Poxon UK David was elected as a signature member of the prestigious National Watercolor Society of America (NWS) in August
- Charles Reid USA I'm a long term big time fan of this fabulous painter
- Joseph Zbukvic Australia - take a look at his studio! If you look at the notes below his paintings you'll see he's providing tips on how to produce work like this.
Judging Experience in Shanghai 2012 is a report by Alvaro Castagnet about the judges and the judging process for this important competition. He finishes with some interesting observations on the differences between Chinese and other watercolour artists. In summary these are:
- Chinese artists take a more calligraphic approach to handling brushes and making marks
- Chinese watercolours focus more on the theme and meaning behind the subject.
- There is more personality in overseas watercolour paintings. Chinese watercolourists are more focused on showcasing techniques and expressing the deeper meaning behind the subject.
- Most Chinese artists have a job in an art-related field and do not rely in sales to make a living.
Artists and Art Blogs
Botanical Art
- Top tips from RHS Gold Medal Winning botanical artist Janie Pirie - who uses coloured pencils - in an online article re this month's Artists & Illustrators magazine - How to Draw Cherries
- Cathy Holtom (Down a dusty lane......) has written about 15 shades of black of pastels, pencils and ink.
- Congrats to all those who won the top prizes for best in the Annual UKCPS Open International Exhibition - for both coloured pencils and mixed media respectively. You can read the list - and my observations about the exhibition - in my Review - UKCPS 11th Annual Open International Exhibition 2012
- Ester Roi (Ester Roi Fine Art) has started to produce oversized giclee prints from works in coloured pencil - see Introducing Oversized Limited Edition Giclees. Ester for me is one of a few coloured pencil artists (and inventors) who have a proper appreciation of how to bring coloured pencil art (and inventions!) to the market in a way which gets it taken seriously. It's one thing to produce it, it's quite another to get it sold!
- Laura (Laurelines) has been back to Iceland - see some amazing sketches in Iceland: made it and back! This came after the worst of all travel nightmares - losing the passport Iceland, interrupted
- I wrote about my visit to Hampton Court Palace and its 300 year old Yew Trees - they're massive, they're conical and they're 300 years old! There are endless sketching opportunities there.
 |
| Yews at Hampton Court Palace, October 2012 pen and ink and coloured pencils, 8" x 10" in Moleskine Sketchbook copyright Katherine Tyrrell |
- Have you ever noticed how a lot of people seem to paint certain places - I decided to start a website where I'm aiming to include all The Best Art Books about London and the River Thames. I've started by with my Book Review: Spanning the Thames (which includes lots of links to the websites of people who paint landscapes!)
- I came across an artist who's new to me this week whose paintings I really like. Michael Bennallack Hart is an English artist who paints landscapes in oil and pastels - most are of landscapes in the southern counties. American artists might want to take a look at his gallery of American paintings - which mostly seem to be about California. Ditto those living in Italy might want to look at the two galleries of Italian Paintings I and II. He triggered something in my head about what I've had in mind to do with my work.
- An article in the Daily Mail Revealed: The real-life muses Norman Rockwell. The modern day equivalent who springs to mind is James Gurney (Gurney Journey)...
- ...who has written a very helpful blog post about Painting in Bright Light
Marketing art via Facebook
- I see that a number of artists, like me, had not seen The Facebook Guide to Facebook Pages before they set up their Facebook Pages.
- This includes the Facebook Page Tip: "Publish visually engaging Page posts" - which is well worthwhile paying attention to as posts with a picture get twice the audience of other posts
- CNET has also had a go at Figuring out what kind of content works on Facebook and references this post which demonstrates that even the journalists are still trying to fogure out what works on Facebook!
- However the general consensus seems to be.....
Posting photos rather than status updates has been good practice for a long time...This means that if you have a good photo or video with a story, you should consider posting the photo, with the link in the caption, rather than just posting the link in a status update.
Other art business
- Robert Genn this week debated the question of "no signature" on a painting - from which I can see I'm not alone in signing my work on the back. Be sure to read all the comments.
- The Whitechapel Gallery has joined Pinterest - but has no boards. Maybe they're checking out what people have been pinning? ;)
- Read the comments to the questions posed in this post about shipping artwork Let's Wrap The Whole Thing Up! on Gatepost Pictures
- Joanne Mattera Joanne Mattera Art Blog: had a very pertinent post for many artists last week Marketing Mondays: Exhibition Options. A Recap
- I came across a staggering statistic about art galleries participating in art fairs in What's a Fair Worth? Investigating the Economy of the New Event-Driven Art World in BlouinArtInfo. When you think about it busy people are bound to like art fairs as they can make their viewing of alternative options much more time-efficient
Most reported that art fairs alone account for an average of 60 percent — and as much as 90 percent — of their total business.
- Alyson Stanfield (artbizblog) argues that Gentle Persistence Pays Off when it comes to communicating with art collectors
- David Batty at the Guardian observes that US galleries are moving into London - see US art dealers make London scene a battleground
 |
| The Menu for the Awards Dinner |
- I had a great time at the Awards Dinner for the Threadneedle Prize on Wednesday night and saw a man win the top award - the £30,000 Threadneedle Prize - for the first time in five years for an artwork where key ingredients were coffee and tea. See Threadneedle Prize 2012 - the Award Winners. Interestingly the winners of both the Threadneedle Prize and the People's Choice Awards were sculptures!
Exhibitions in the UK
- Cotman in Normandy opened at the Dulwich Picture Gallery - this is my Review: Cotman in Normandy - at Dulwich Picture Gallery
- Hockney to Hogarth: A Rake’s Progress (6 October 2012 – 3 February 2013) opened at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester
David Hockney’s entire print series A Rake’s Progress (1961-1963) joins William Hogarth’s eighteenth-century series of the same title, which has been in the Whitworth’s collection since 1926. To celebrate the coming together of these great works, this exhibition showcases both versions, unravelling their tales of transformation, youth, sexual discovery and unrequited love.
Art Society Exhibitions in the UK
- The 75th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers runs from:
- 20th September 2012 to 20th October 2012 at Art Jericho Gallery, 6 King Street, Oxford OX2 6DP.
Art Exhibitions in the USA
Exhibitions in Australia
Exhibitions in Australia
- Capturing Flora: 300 years of Australian botanical art is at the Art Gallery of Ballerat until 2 December 2012, 9am to 5pm
Tutor vacancy
- The London Art College has a vacancy for a a tutor to take over the running of their well established and very popular Pet Portrait Diploma distance learning art course. This is likely to be of interest to those UK artists who have considerable experience in Pet Portraits and Wildlife / Animal art and are familiar with a variety of mediums - specifically pencil, pastel, acrylics, oils and coloured pencils.You can find more details in their blog post Tutor required. Pencil artist Melanie Phillips has fulfilled this role in recent years and is happy to talk with those interested in the position.
Art History
Art Videos- Stapleton Kearns (Stapleton Kearns) has written A little about Nicolai Fechin
- 'Lucian wanted us to have a baby' is the title of an interview with Celia Paul, one of Freud's ex lovers. (Her son is the artist Frank Paul)
- Here's Nuts & Bolts 'Juicy Reds' by Alvaro Castagnet - on YouTube
- Google has updated its algorythm four times in recent weeks - here's HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog on the topic
Google's fourth update in two weeks. To sum up the changes, first was Panda Update 20 on September 27th, then the EMD Update 1 on September 28th, next the Penguin Update 3 on October 5th, and now Top Heavy 2 has rolled out, as of October 9th.
- You don't need a Google account to comment on this blog but it can be a good idea to get an OpenID - check out the website for how to get an openID
I was greatly amused by this article which comprises 20 photos of artists and their animals.
wow what a round up - much appreciated. would love to include the next Spirited Bodies event on 20 Oct at Battersea Arts Centre. know from reading previous blog entries that life drawing is hard for you, so that Spirited Bodies wouldn't work for you necessarily, but maybe some of the others who read yr blog? Spirited Bodies is multi-model life art, we've got 66 people signed up to model on 20 Oct, from 11 am to 5 pm, age range of models 19 to 73, all shapes and sizes, tickets available from Battersea Arts Centre, www.bac.org.uk. the models are all participating for free, most have never modelled for artists before. Spirited Bodies is organised by two experienced life models, myself and Esther Bunting, creating a rare opportunity for artists to work from more than one figure at a time. we work with the models to create scenarios and connected poses, connected both energetically and physically. some amazing work has been done at previous events, wonderful collage, watercolours, inks, charcoal etc. this one is part of The Big Draw. i'd love to tell you more about it, please do give me a call or an email. Lucy_saunders@hotmail.com, tel: 0777 55 66 074, www.spiritedbodies.com is Esther's blog supporting the events.
ReplyDeleteI was full of anticipation about all that I'd see in this week's post and I was right to be. Michael Bennallack Hart's work is very interesting, with a wide stylistic range. Thanks for mentioning my Iceland adventures and sketches. Persistence did, indeed, pay off!
ReplyDeleteI would dearly love being able to go to Hampton Court Palace and Gardens sketching with you. Our results would be so different and so interesting to compare!