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

The Dobell Prize for Drawing is Australia's most prestigious prize for drawing.  Sad to say, but 2012 is the last year it's going to be awarded.  Apparently there are too many prizes for drawing! So it's to be replaced by the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial which will start in 2014.

Dobell Prize for Drawing 2012 
winner: Gareth Sansom Made in Wadeye 2012, 
suite of 20 drawings on white cartridge paper, ink, lead pencil, graphite, coloured watercolour pencil, 
felt-tipped pen, ballpoint pen, egg tempera, earth, collage,
29.7 × 42 cm each sheet, 119 × 210 cm overall

The 2012 $30,000 Dobell Drawing Prize was won by Melbourne artist Gareth Sansom (age 73) for his drawing Made in Wadeye.  Wadeye is an aboriginal community in the Northern Territory. His drawing beat beat 638 entries and 46 finalists to win the very last prize.  It comprises a suite of 20 drawings measuring 119 × 210 cm overall. Each drawing drawn on white cartridge paper (29.7 × 42 cm) using ink, lead pencil, graphite, coloured watercolour pencil, felt-tipped pen, ballpoint pen, egg tempera, earth, collage. 

The winning work, Made in Wadeye, was made during the artist’s visit to a remote Aboriginal settlement south-west of Darwin during September 2012, where his wife was engaged in clinical work as a doctor. Reference to the Wadeye community can be found in a small, collaged, photocopied map, and earth, captured in the egg tempera paint. But although the visit to Wadeye was the impetus for the series, it was not its subject. As the artist states: ‘I make stream-of-consciousness drawings with sources going back years

Artists and Art Blogs

Drawing and Sketching

Urban Sketchers were out in force this weekend. On Saturday

• Urban Sketchers Australia had their first sketchcrawl in Sydney
• Urban Sketchers London had their 3rd Sketchcrawl - see South Kensington Sketchcrawl on December 1st.  
• Here's one of my sketches from the day.  I'd suggested we try South Kensington as it's got museums if the weather is inclement - and it's got a skating rink outside the Natural History Museum and an excellent high level cafe from which to draw the skaters!  The trick is to remember to draw all those clinging to the barriers as well as those who are motoring around the rink! (Plus, earlier in the week, I also had
  Chocolate cake at Kensington Palace Café)

Skaters at the Natural History Museum Ice Rink
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook, 8" x 10"

© Katherine Tyrrell

Landscape

• One of the interesting consequences of my new challenge "Who Painted This" is that people often seem to be looking at an artist's paintings in a new light.  Fred J Marsh (Painting Light by Fred Marsh) is one such.  In Hawkesbury River, Sydney- Arthur Streeton and I Fred reflects on the fact he painted the Hawkesbury River recently without realising he was very close to where Arthur Streeton painted "The purple noon’s transparent might" (and the subject of Who painted this #5).  He identifies that there is a spot called Streeton's Lookout - so if anybody else fancies a go at the view this is the place to go.
• I'm a big fan of Robin Purcell's paintings and loved her retrospective post Path to MCWA ...fond memories of Paintings and Jurors past.  Robin has just earned Master Signature Membership status with the California Watercolor Association for having exhibited in Six National Exhibitions.
• Sonya Chasey (Artwork from Hendaye) doesn't post often - but I very like the landscape artwork which appears when she does
• The Virtual Paintout in December is Slovakia

Mural Painting

• Jimmy Savile: Banksy-style mural appears outside BBC Television Centre - whether it's Banksy or not, there's certainly something very pointed and appropriate about a mural of a small child throwing a Jim'll Fix It badge down a drain on a hoarding opposite the BBC television Centre.  Small wonder it was painted over within an hour if it's appearing - which seems like the visual art equivalent of "looking the other way" and "sweeping it under the carpet".  I'd have thought more of the BBC if they'd left it up!

Portraiture

• Daphne Todd, the ex President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and BP Portrait Award Winner, talks about portraiture, painting from life, her time at Heatherley's, female artists and submitting work to an art competition in a very articulate interview on YouTube. I'm going to be doing an interview with her on the 10th December at the opening of her solo show of paintings, featuring oils painted as Official Tour artist to TRH The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall during their tour of South Africa and Tanzania, at the Mall Galleries (10th - 23rd December 2012).  You can see more of her portrait paintings on her website

Pastels and Pencils

• Some amazing coloured pencil sculptures are featured in Lionel Bawden’s Colored Pencil Sculptures by Nastia Voynovskaya on Hi-Fructose.  Lionel Bawden is an Australian artist and previous winner of the Wynne Prize working in sculpture, performance, installation and painting. He uses hexagonal Staedtler coloured pencils for his sculptures and you can see more of them in the Works section of his website.
• I put a new portfolio together on my website this week.  It's called Foodie Drawings by Katherine Tyrrell and it comprises my sketches of food and drink from my travels.

Who painted this?

• Who painted this? #6 - here's your latest challenge - and it's cabbages!  Do you know how many people have painted cabbages?
• Sue Smith won last week's Who painted this? #5 and I've now rechristened her "Speedy" Sue Smith Sue's Sketch Blog).(Sue also won "Who Painted This #3" ! )

Art Books

• I've updated Makingamark's Top 10 Fine Art Books in November 2012 after a bit of a hiatus.  Do you have any of the books in the top 10?

Art Business and Marketing

Copyright

• Brian Sherwin (FASO Fine Art Views) has Some Thoughts Concerning International Copyright

Marketing Art

• Aletta de Wal published an article about Introducing the ABC’s of Art Marketing: Appreciating Your Audience on Empty Easel. You can also find Aletta on Artist Career Training (A.C.T.)
• You can also view the Email Archives of A.C.T.'s Monthly Newsletter "ArtMatters!". Here's a couple:
• The Inside Story of Grants for Artists
• The Inside Story of Art Licensing

Art Collectors / Art Economy

• It was always too good to last! I can be heard cheering from the sidelines as Works by Damien Hirst lose 30 per cent of their value, while one third fail to sell at all.  It appears oversupply is at least partly accountable for the drop in valuations - particularly in relation to the "luxury goods productions" of later years.  There's a lesson in there somewhere for all artists.........

Art Competitions

Masai Woman by Jeanette Jobson

colored pencil and pastel, 25''x19''

currently on display in the

Portrait Society of Canada 2012 Portrait Exhibition

© Jeanette Jobson

• The Turnip Prize is intended as an antidote to The Turner Prize.  You can see more about it on Facebook or read mopre about it in this Daily Mail article..... Shock absorbers, balls of dough and a broken stone... The bizarre entries to this year's Turnip Prize
• Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) has an artwork 'Masai Woman' (see right) in the Portrait Society of Canada's 2012 Portrait Competition 'The Miracle of the Portrait'.  This is the Voting Page for the People's Choice award.  
• I'm expecting an announcement about the BP Portrait Award 2013 within days - and there'll be an overview of the process of submitting a work on this blog as soon as the Call for Entries has been published

Art Crime

• It appears the Marcos Art Collection could generate a few new books about art crime and hunting down missing paintings!  The Telegraph article Van Gogh among 146 missing Marcos paintings indicates that 146 paintings - including works by Picasso, Rembrandt and Van Gogh - collected by the Marcos family 'could be anywhere'.

They didn't only hoard shoes. Former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda amassed a remarkable art collection, paid for with stolen funds, and many of the masterpieces remain missing.  

Art Education

Tips and techniques

• Stapleton Kearns (Stapleton Kearns) has some useful tips and cautionary notes about Sanding Acrylic Gesso and reclaiming oil 
• Breaking Free From your Photos...Painting Winter - Karen Margulis (Painting my World) offers some tips for how she uses reference photos when the weather is not so good while at the same time avoiding copying the photograph
• Belinda Lindhardt has developed a YouTube video to show you How to extend the short stubs of your coloured pencils
• When Artists Unify - by Casey Klahn (Pastel Worksop)

Art Exhibitions

Art Exhibitions in London

• I posted my periodic review of London Art Exhibitions - Autumn/Winter 2012.  There's a reason why London has the reputation of being the top art city!
• Antony Gormley's latest exhibition is Model at the White Cube in Bermondsey (144 – 152 Bermondsey Street London SE1 3TQ) - this is the Telegraph's review and this is Jonathan Jones review in The Guardian. It runs until 10 February 2013.
• Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire is at the British Library 9 November 2012 - 2 April 2013. 200 objects document the Mughal empire from the 16th to the 19th century.  This is the Guardian review of the exhibition

Art Society Exhibitions

• The Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club has opened at the Mall Galleries and continues until Sunday 9th December.  
• You can also see some of the members' works online
• This is the NEAC Blog - New English Art Club - although there's no posts about the Private View of the exhibition as yet.
• To coincide with the Annual Open, the NEAC Drawing School is putting on a schedule of workshops, talks and demonstrations this week - all of which are FREE.  On Tuesday 4th - Julie Jackson - 11 till 3 - Workshop on sketchbooks, including information gathering and an informal sketchbook surgery.  
• Julie also takes the NEAC Drawing Schools' Wednesday Evening Life Classes at the Royal Academy Schools

Art Bloggers

• David J Teter (Avid Art) has work in a Show called 6 Inch Squared at the Randy Higbee Gallery in Costa Mesa California

Art Museums and Galleries

• Edward Winkelman (edward_ winkleman) documents what it was like for his Gallery post Sandy - see A Short Slide Show of our Sandy Vacation.  Here's hoping business is back to usual in as short a time as possible.

I imagine it's tough when you're not on the scene of such a disaster to imagine what it's really like. The types of responses to accounts by arts writers I've read in some places strike me as so heartless and, well, some of them downright clueless, that I thought I'd share what it feels like to have the business you've struggled to build for years get washed away overnight.

• I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of Grayson Perry. I'm very pleased to hear that he has donated his Hogarth-inspired tapestries to the Arts Council Collection and the British Council.  The best bit about this is that they can be loaned out to any Gallery.  The making of the collection of tapestries, collectively known as The Vanity of Small Differences, were documented in the excellent Channel 4 series All in the Best Possible Taste.
• Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) has reviewed the new New Rijksmuseum website

Art Materials and Supplies

• What is Archival Paper? was intended to address the little bit of confusion I come across from time to time about what exactly is archival paper.
• Yesterday I posted the results of the two opinion polls I've recently set up with a view to finding out what people think is the best artist-quality watercolour paint - see W&N: the best brand of watercolour paint for artists.

Techies

Those of you followed the big PC vs Apple debate nearly three years ago when I was buying a new computer will know I plumped for an Apple iMac.  Not only that but I subsequently bought an iPad and an iMac for my Mother.  It's going to be rounded off this week when my better half finally places an order for his very own iMac!

Neverthless as an ex PC person I remain vigilant about security - even though there have been absolutely no issues to date!  However I spotted this article this week Securing Your Mac: A Guide for Reasonable People, Version 1.0 which is on TUAC - The Unofficial Apple Weblog by TJ Luoma. It has some sensible advice.

and finally......

This is a great collection of images of women and cats on Flickr.  Who knew there were so many or that this has been a perennial subject over the years?