22nd October 2013 - Who's made a mark?

October is exhibition overload month! I had three exhibitions last week plus a bug - and three more which opened last week and which I haven't visited yet ! So I gave myself permission to write about the Whistler this week and took it easy over the weekend!  The images in this post this week are mainly from the exhibitions I've viewed - as indicated - by way of even more of a taster for those who'd like to see more.

Dr Patricia Montfort and Professor Margaret F McDonald
Curators of An American in London: Whistler and the Thames at Dulwich Picture Gallery
Standing in front of Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge

Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Marine Artists. Mall Galleries - West Gallery
always a very popular exhibition - with good sales

I'm thinking of moving this post to a regular slot on Mondays.  The reason being I keep getting the notion that the weekend ought to be more of a "me" time.  It's been sliding from Sundays to Monday for a while so we'll see how it goes.

This one slid into Tuesday because all day yesterday I was following a major story about copyright infringement which I stumbled upon and which had gone viral - as in 245k shares of the original story on Facebook!  So it started as a couple of lines in this post and by the end of the day was a recommended read for all those who need to know about fair use and/or aren't confident about copyright matters.

Art & Artists

I kicked off last week with this post You are known by the company you keep. This was triggered by using this phrase when discussing some recent "goings on" with fellow artists.

Drawing & Sketching

• Some of my sketches of gardens and parks will be seen in a new book called Sketch Your World which will be published in January 2014.  I'll be writing more about this nearer the date of publication.  The author of the book is James Hobbs (James Hobbs) who is a former editor of Artists & Illustrators magazine, the current editor of Discover Art bookzine, a board member of Urban Sketchers and a founding member of the London Urban Sketchers.

The different covers for Sketch Your World

• Last weekend was the 41st Worldwide Sketchcrawl - 
• Urban Sketchers records The 41st Worldwide Sketchcrawl meets The Big Draw LA!
• Plus there was a healthy turn-out in Sydney Australia - 41st Sketchcrawl in Hyde Park, Sydney
• Liz Steel (Sketching Architecture) has an article about Sketching Architecture in the October edition of Artists & Illustrators Magazine - see My Architecture Sketchbook article
• David Shrigley, one of this year's Turner Prize nominees draws for a living.  In this Guardian article he tells Will Self how he got started - David Shrigley: 'I gave my book out at the pub – that's how it all started'   You can take a look at: some of his drawings - in this one Artists talk about their work. 
• People's sketchbooks on Pearltrees - an unusual way of finding out about sketchbooks
• I finally got round to posting my Lunch for one at the National Dining Rooms on my sketchbook blog

Painting

• The Royal Watercolour Society now has a blog - unfortunately it's a blog without a feed
• so can't be read in feedreaders and won't translate to Facebook.  If you go to the trouble of creating and maintaining a blog do make sure it has an RSS feed.
• Artists who impressed this week included:
• Mark Dalessio and Plein Air Painting in the Tuileries Gardens, Paris
• Haidee-Jo Summers - She's been covering the completion of a painting involving big red sails this week on her blog Haidee-Jo Summers artist - ma vie en couleurs 
• Michael Chesley Johnson - Government Shutdown Couldn't Shut Down This Plein Air Painting Workshop - what do you do when the goverment shuts down all the National Parks and you have a workshop planned?
• Haidee has also been playing at Being Monsieur Monet - which reminded me of one my favourite occupations which is drawing masterpieces in coloured pencil.  I was reminded that I'd also tackled Morning on the Seine in a different colourway some time ago. It's prompted me to think I should do more. I know I learn a huge amount every time I copy a painting by an old Master.  However it's important to remember there's a lot of difference between copying somebody who's out of copyright and an image by an artist or photographer whose work is covered by copyright - see the copyright section for more discussion of this in the light of this week's viral copyright story.

Morning on the Seine - a copy of Monet's work in coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Pastels and Pencils

• I like to highlight pencil artists who are doing well - and to highlight the criteria and means for how to do well.  Chris Otley (Ways of Seeing) is a graphite artist who likes making large drawings of natural history subjects.  This week he is one of the 100 currently unrepresented artists featured at The Other Art Fair in London which gets about 10,000 visitors.  This is his page on the Other Art Fair website.  Note the street cred. in terms of artist statement and art education. In order to be selected for this well-regarded event an artist had to be selected by a panel of experts which comprised 
• Yinka Shonibare MBE, 
• Rebecca Wilson (Director of the Saatchi Gallery), 
• David Jaffe (Senior Curator, National Gallery) and 
• Nick Hackworth (Director of Paradise Row and former contemporary art critic of the Evening Standard).
• The Artists Network have announced the Winners of the 15th Annual Pastel 100 Competition 

Fine Art Prints

• Artists who impressed this week included Austin Cole with some super etchings at the RSMA Annual Exhibition 

North Pembrokshire by Austin Cole
Etching (edition of 12 - 2 available) £420 unframed

Wildlife Art

• Davina Bosanquet has an article in Artists & Illustrators.  Davina is particularly good at painting movement in animals - she won the Wildlife in Action Prize at the David Shepherd's Wildlife Artist of the Year competition in 2010

Who painted this?

• This is Who Painted This? #49
• The response to the new way of tackling Who Painted this #48 was not good - I'm wondering if the problem is the approach or the image.  John O'Grady and Bernadette Madden were the joint winners (see #48 for their contributions and #49 for details of the image)

Art Business & Marketing

Artist development

• Luann Udell has taken an enlightening perspective on how you tell your story about who you are as an artist - see Letting Go... So We Can Become Something Else

Copyright for Artists

• RECOMMENDED READ  The issue is about "fair use" when appropriating other people's work. The viral online copyright storm re. Congdon vs Cody Foster is outlined in my blog post yesterday - see Copyright for Artists - Congdon vs Cody Foster. 
• As part of the research I did for the blog post I finally tracked down what has happened to Cariou vs Prince case which relates to Richard Prince's manipulation of photographs taken by Patrick Cariou.
• Although the Appeal Court ruled that Prince could use "fair use" re some of Cariou's images which he maniulated, another court reviewed again some a smaller number where it was determined that the changes made were insufficient for them to be deemed transformative and hence "fair use" did not apply
• The current situation is that on August 27, 2013, a petition for a writ of certiorari was docketed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Cariou v. Prince.  That means Cariou is now trying to get the lingering issues determined re what is transformative and hence what is fair use when appropriating other people's images. It's not yet clear whether the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case.

Marketing and selling art

• Copyblogger had an article this week all about art marketing - see 99 Ways to Market Your Art by Leanne Regalla - who's ostensibly a writer at MakeCreativityPay.com and on a mission to teach creative people of all types how to pursue their art without going broke, living in their cars, and starving to death. Except for one thing - this is a blog which does NOT yet exist - but wants you to sign for when it does.  This is not marketing by role modelling as I know it!  Moral of the story - before believing everything you read try checking out the person who's doing the writing.  To be absolutely honest I find these articles with OTT imagery and hyped up words with "read me" sub-heads to be a switch-off very fast. I don't think I've ever got to the end of an article which starts "99 ways to...."
• Clint Watson (Fine Art Views) by way of contrast has a more focused perspective - last week he wrote about The "6C's" of Art Sales
• Robert Genn (The Painter's Keys) takes a professional perspective on Amazon Art in Changing Times and also has some interesting comments on the audience for online art at the FAA site.  It generated quite a few comments on the latter.

Art Collectors & Art Economy

Art Fairs in London

It's Frieze time again - plus the satellites.  I'm afraid I always avoid it - and it closed yesterday - because when the newspaper articles start to become about what people wear to art fairs is when I think it's time to look elsewhere. However this is what the papers had to say.

• The Telegraph - Victoria Siddall, director of Frieze Masters provides a guide to collectors The Tipster: buying at an art fair 
• The Guardian 
• Adrian Searle salivated - Bigger, brighter, better: Frieze London 2013
• Frieze Art Fair: Buyer choice expands from porn and puddles to a Brueghel With work of 2,000 artists from galleries worldwide the fair at Regent's Park, London, attracts collectors with deep pockets
• The Art Newspaper highlights video art in its article Time to take in video art - Moving Image debunks the myth that media works are a hard sell for fairs. Moving Image is run by well know art blogger Ed Winkleman (edward_winkleman)

Art Exhibitions

Major Art Exhibitions in London

New exhibitions opening this week included:

• The EY Exhibition: Paul Klee - Making Visible at Tate Modern (Until 9 March 2014).  All the works are ordered according to Klee's obsessive numbering system. I'll probably go and see this - but he's never been an artist who interested me much. I'm guessing whether you like it or not will probably depend on how much you like modern art. Reviews include:
• The Guardian 
• a preview piece Paul Klee exhibition at Tate Modern first major UK show for a decade 
• plus Adrian Searle's review Paul Klee at Tate Modern: More! More! More! who thinks one visit to the Tate's new show will never be enough
• plus a slideshow of  Paul Klee: Making Visible at Tate Modern – in pictures
• The Observer - Laura Cuming's review - Paul Klee: Making Visible – review The sheer graphic zip and register of Paul Klee's art makes for exhilaration all the way in this beautifully presented show
• The Independent - Review: Paul Klee, Tate Modern gives it 3***
• The Telegraph - Paul Klee: Making Visible, Tate Modern Richard Dorment gives it 4**** and says Tate Modern's new survey of Paul Klee's work is one you'll want to visit again and again
• The Finanical Times - Paul Klee's new show at Tate Modern
• The Economist - The Art of Paul Klee - Shape shifting (preview article - focusing on the artist's career)

The experience of looking at a great many Klees at one go is like eating too many chocolates … it is often hard to stay alert, and to keep one’s curiosity aliveThe Guardian

• An American in London: Whistler and the Thames at Dulwich Picture Gallery.  I'm writing my review later today and it will publish tomorrow.  These are the reviews
• The Independent - James Whistler’s tales of the riverbank at work
• Financial Times - Whistler and the Thames, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London – review
• The Telegraph - Whistler and the Thames, Dulwich Picture Gallery, review

The tour by the curators - explained features of various works in the show
(Left) "Wapping" | (right) Symphony in White #2 The Little White Girl

• The Young Durer: Drawing the Figure at the Courtauld Gallery
• The Telegraph - The Young Dürer, Courtauld Gallery, review
• The Idle Woman - The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure - a very informative review - I suggest you read this one before you read Jonathan Jones below!
• The Guardian - Courtauld's pedantry clouds Albrecht Dürer's visionary genius by Jonathan Jones
• Leander of The Idle Woman - brings a a distinctly knowledgeable historical perspective and also provides an informative review of Elizabeth I & Her People at the National Portrait Gallery - making points missed by me and some of the major periodicals.

If you're writing reviews of exhibitions in London do let me know - I'd rather list bloggers than newspapers!

Art Society exhibitions

Two major exhibitions opened last week in London and continue until 1pm on Sunday 27th October

• First - the Royal Society of Marine Artists have an impressive exhibition at the Mall Galleries - this is my Review: Royal Society of Marine Artists - 68th Annual Exhibition.  This is an exhibition which does consistently well in terms of sales.  I guess people who like boats also like paintings of boats!

Paintings by David Curtis RSMA ROI
As seen in the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Marine Artists at the Mall Galleries

• This is my Review: 2013 Annual Exhibition of The Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers who are in the North Gallery at the Mall Galleries.  This is another exhibition which always does well year on year in terms of sales and competition to get work shown is very competitive and the quality of work on display is also high.

Miniature paintings of gardens by Carol Flanders RMS SLM HS
As seen in the Annual Exhibition of the
The Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers 

Art Competitions

• The winner of the $150,000 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize is announced this week in Australia and I'll have details later in the week.  
• (If you're boggling at the prize money her's the conversion values - that's $US145,056 or £89,897 or €106,092). 
• You can see past winners and finalists in the Moran Portrait Prizes web gallery. 
• Thinking of entering next year? You and your sitter both need to be Australian!

Art History

• Poul Webb (Art and Artists) has been doing a series of image intensive blog posts about Claude Monet (1840 - 1926)
• Claude Monet part 1 - introduction
• Claude Monet - part 2 1856 - 1864
• Claude Monet - part 3 1865 - 1867
• Claude Monet - part 4 1868 - 1870
• He's also recently done a series about a more contemporary artist I'm very fond of Paul Hogarth (1917-2001)
• Paul Hogarth - part 1
• Paul Hogarth - part 2
• Paul Hogarth - part 3

Art Materials and Supplies

• I updated my website about paper and non-canvas supports for artists - so it now has a major section on vellum and a slight change of name - Fine Art Paper & Vellum for Artists.   I think the memory of those very fine paintings on vellum by Rory McEwen won't leave me.  Vellum always seems to make colour sing out.
• Cass Art is a major art shop in London. It has a blog - however the blog has problems. 
• Problem #1 - Images are far too big and not properly optimised for the net and 
• Problem #2 - It 's one of those website special blogs (like the RWS blog mentioned above) - which I absolutely hate because they have one universal characteristic i.e. No RSS feed that Feedly can find - or me for that matter! Hence impossible to follow through a feedreader.  
• However there have been rather more blog posts this year - hence the mention. Here's a sample: "Top 5 products I wouldn't do without" from our product specialise Chris Bond What are the products you can't do without?

Art Education

• This is Artist Daily on the topic of oil painting. A quick trot through some instruction and highlights of art history.  (How can you do that in one article?)
• Very sound advice by Courtney Jordan, the Editor of Artist Daily in another article - Don't Paint the Sky Blue!
• Botanical artist Anna Mason (Facebook) produces big vibrant paintings of flowers. She has a new online workshop for watercolorists www.watercolourswithwow.com. She's already achieved 1,000+ members for the free part in the first month. 

Art on Radio, Television and Film

• Essential Listening: Democracy Has Bad Taste is my post about the first of Grayson Perry's Reith lectures - which was stunningly good.  I'm really looking forward to the rest.
• More Art of Australia - on BBC4 and iPlayer covers the art shown in the first episode of a series of three programmes about the art of Australia currently being shown on BBC4
• There's another chance to see Turner's Thames (see my previous review BBC4 - Turner's Thames on The Art of the Landscape)
• The Idle Woman has set herself the task of trying to track down as many films as she can about the lives and works of the Old Masters.  She starts with Artists on Film: Artemisia about Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-circa 1656)

Framing art

• The Telegraph has a video interview with The Master: Mark Darbyshire, framer.  This is the man who creates plinths and boxes and frames artwork for the rich and famous - both artist and collector!  This is Mark Darbyshire's website and here's the technical detail
• Want to know how to frame pastels? I've just added these two articles by Greg Fremstad (President & Founder of FrameTek, Inc.  articles into Pastels - Resources for Artists plus a couple of articles about passe-partout framing
• Pastel Framing Tips - how to frame your pastel paintings properly and easily
• Stopping The Dust Pump - explains how conventional framing with glass, mats (or spacers) when applied to pastels creates a very efficient diaphragm pump - with movement pumping air in and out of the frame.
• Richard McKinley’s Pastel Pointers Blog | Passe-Partout Framing which essentially means creating an artwork-vacuum sandwich.
• Here's another take from the Wet Canvas Pastel Forum on the Passe-Partout method of framing pastels.

Techies

Screendumps

• I'm sure I'm not the first person for whom the screendump commands don't always work in Apple. (That's Cmd+Shift+3 for whole screen and Cmd+Shift+4 to select part of screen). They come back but sometimes they sulk first! Here is a really helpful - and old - handout on how to use the Grab function - which you can access as an Apple utility. The pdf File is called "Image and Screen Capture with Apple Grab" and was created by Holly Robertson Spring 2004 IT Lab, School of Information, University of Texas at Austin

Websites and blogs

• Ever wondered about the best time to post to Facebook or tweet? Here's A scientific guide to posting Tweets, Facebook posts, Emails and Blog posts at the best time by Belle Beth Cooper on Buffer
• Did you know that you can now Automatically share your blog posts to Google+? The bit I don't get is why would you want to since Facebook buries your post if you use an automated system for inserting a blog post.
• Feedly has had an upgrade - and here's what they've been up on Building Feedly - 6 New Features: Speed Boost, Custom Sharing and more
• Blogger seriously needs to sort out 
• its servers/systems so that I don't get An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again  every five minutes!
• whatever is distorting colour palettes on upload to Blogger.  I've tried to upload one image which looks fine in PS Elements three times and each time it comes out with a distorted colour palette.

Online products - digital distribution

• If you have an online product - such as an ebook you might be interested in this no-art technical post on Viper Chill  about [GET] How I Stopped Blackhat Forums & File Sharers Distributing My Products. The author is very successful at online marketing of digital books so should know what he's talking about - even if it's absolutely nothing to do with art.

and finally......

I know there is some really odd art speak out there - but these descriptions win the 'gold medal'! See How To Recognise Famous Painters According To The Internet