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Monday, October 28, 2013

28th October 2013 - Who's made a mark this week?

An announcement has been made......

"For years I've been telling artists to do it now, not later"

I'm sure a lot of people were as shocked as I was this week to hear that Robert Genn (The Painter's Keys) got some very bad news of the terminal kind last weekend - see 'The bomb'. The results of his CT scan mean he's currently going through his studio sorting through work into piles of 'destroy', 'sign' and 'keep' - and working out what's going to happen to the letters and clickbacks - and how he plans to spend the rest of his days.

For me, I've always tended to regard Robert as one of those sages who one comes across from time to time. He tells a good story and almost invariably has some very good advice to offer. One only has to sit and listen to increase our knowledge of good things to know - or in our case 'read' - and I certainly I read his letters as they landed in my inbox every week. I'm personally very pleased I bought one of his books - The Robert Genn Twice-Weekly Letters

For many artists his words have been very accessible - he talks in language we all understand. The fact that he's been passing on accumulated wisdom twice a week for years and years means he's going to be leaving behind a pretty big legacy.  Here are the links to all the clickbacks - 2013201220112010200920082007200620052004200320022001 and
2000.

Also, here's just one of the videos Robert Genn: Painting as Tribute (White Rock Gallery) which you can find on his website - see Videos



Here's another one which is just a video of Robert painting a scene in the forest.  I always think of him as a master of negative space.


Also this week we heard of the death of the eminent sculptor Sir Anthony Caro OM CBE RA

Caro was one of the most important sculptors of his generation in the world and his sculpture is represented in more than 175 public collections all over the world. He was also the 'design brains' behind the Millenium Bridge over the Thames. He's received many fulsome tributes.
I asked Caro one of those unanswerable journalistic questions: what is sculpture for? His answer was pin-sharp: “To please the eye and feed the soul,” he shot back. “Human beings dance, they make music, they carve little pebbles, or stick pieces of clay together. Animals don’t do it. It’s just a natural human thing.
Estate Planning for Artists and Art Portfolios is not something any of us ever want to really think about.  Indeed a tendency to bury one's head in the sand is quite prevalent! However if this is something that concerns you and you don't really know where to start, can I suggest you review my website Art after death - Resources for Artists & Art Collectors.

Art Materials

Painting

This apparently is a technique suitable for a rainy messy art day in the studio!  The post by Erin Duquette is called rainy day Gouache and Ink

Painter's Palettes


Art Blogs and Podcasts

What kind of things do and do not qualify as contemporary art?


Painters
Leffel has an extraordinary sensitivity to edges, texture, color harmony and value relationships, that makes his still life subjects simultaneously lively and deeply contemplative.

Street Art

Who painted this

Wildlife Art

This book demonstrates very clearly that this is an art society which places a lot of emphasis on observation. Most artists spend a considerable amount of time on observation of their subject matter 'in the field' (or the sea or the sky!) and the collection of information for making art before they get to the studio. This to my mind is what marks out the type of artist who gains admission to this society.

Art Business & Marketing


Copyright

Three different perspectives on issues relating to copying
  • Recommended reading for all those concerned about COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. The viral online copyright storm re. Congdon vs Cody Foster (as outlined in my blog post Copyright for Artists - Congdon vs Cody Foster) continued last week as the comments on Lisa Congdon vs. Cody Foster: What about the photographers? continued to climb.  They now stand at 333 comments. It makes an interesting read.
  • Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) has an excellent post about copying and being copied - see Take it!
  • Digital artist Susan Murtagh  had her painting used for a new Apple advert which showed a new bit of kit using SketchBook Pro for their website. No they did not ask. Yes she is thrilled! They got the art from the SketchBook Pro team. Susan had previously a release for the painting when the app updated with it's new smear tool.  So be aware that if you agree that an app can use your artwork created using the app for publicity purposes that it might end up on an advert seen by the whole world!

Marketing you and your work

  • There are some very definite pros and cons to sharing your work and efforts for free. This New York Times Opinion piece - Slaves of the Internet, Unite! -  makes a cogent article for why artists should not undersell themselves or their work - and has 652 comments to date. However I've been sharing 'for free' for years and I have to tell you I've very definitely had 'payback' and in more ways than I could have possibly imagined besides the financial! More about this next week....

Getting into Galleries


Art Competitions



Art Exhibitions


Art Exhibitions in London

Beverley Allen - with Bambusa Vulgaris 'Striata' from the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney
Part of the The Alisa and Isaac M. Sutton Collection and the Botanicals exhibition
at the Private View for the two exhibitions last week
  • I went to see two new botanical art exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens this week - both excellent.  I'll be writing reviews of both of them very soon.  Above and below are images from the Private View and Isaac Tour of the Exhibition.
    • Current Exhibition: Botanicals - Environmental Expressions in Art - This is a travelling exhibition of botanical artwork from the collection of Alisa and Isaac M. Sutton. I really enjoyed the tour of the exhibition by Isaac Sutton on Wednesday afternoon last week.  It was great to see so many familiar faces at the Private View - and I had the pleasure of meeting Beverley Allen who had flown in from Australia for the exhibition.
"The Two Sues"
Sue Wickison and Sue J Williams display works which belong to the world of black and white blooms
    • Current Exhibition: Black and White, in Colour - artwork by Sue Wickison (a natural history fan and formr Kew Gardens illustrator from New Zealand)  and Sue J Williams (Fellow of the Chelsea Florilegium Society - lives in Kent) is for sale and it's excellent!  They both had pieces bought by Shirley Sherwood and Isaac M Sutton and Sue Williams also sold a piece to Kew!
Each of the artists in the 'Black and White' Exhibition has a display case of their studies
This is part of the display case belonging to Sue Williams

UK Art Society Exhibitions

  • The 50th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists opens to the public on 31st October at the Mall Galleries (open every day). This exhibition always has some of the very best drawings, paintings, fine art prints and sculpture that I see all year. The SWLA is very good  about having SWLA members in the gallery to advise aspiring wildlife artists who want advice. Some of the artists will have also sketchbooks and portfolios or show their work in progress or demonstrate drawing and painting methods.
    • Thursday 31 October, 11am - President's Tour of the exhibition with Harriet Mead PSWLA
    • Thursday 31 October, 12pm to 3pm -Portfolio day. Bring in your portfolio and have a critique of your work from President Harriet Mead, Chris Rose and Michael Warren.
    • Saturday 2 November, 11am to 3pm - Printmaking - Max Angus will be on hand to discuss the print making techniques used in the production of her work.
  • Following on from my comments about the numbers of current exhibition about the male body beautiful last week, Jonathan Jones has written Man up: European art and the male nude - a critique of exactly why the male nude has been lusted after for centuries!

Art Exhibitions in the USA

The Sumptuous Still Life

Art History



Art Materials



Techies


  • I'm looking at WeTransfer Plus - wondering about the pros and cons of a paid service for the transfer of large files versus Dropbox. Does anybody have experience of WeTransfer or Dropbox - which would you recommend?
  • Comments on my blog have gone back to being 'registered users' only - because I am just so tired of having to moderate/delete spam when I had it set to 'anyone' while I did a test of opening it up to 'anyone' for the last week or so. Test failed my patience levels and I have reverted to the normal setting - which means you can now only leave a comment if
  • Next time you get a troll on Twitter (or Facebook or a a forum) why not deal with them the James Blunt way - Take note everybody, James Blunt is a stone cold troll killer and James Blunt exposes Twitter trolls.  I do like a man on a mission with a good sense of humour and a lethal wit.

and finally


1 comment:

  1. I`ve been using Wetransfer ( the free version) for a while and have been very happy with the service until recently, when I hit a problem. When sending professionally taken images, where the photographer has put in the titles, everything went smoothly, as it did when sending images without added titles; with just their jpg numbers. When I tried to send images where I had put on the titles myself I got a message saying that Wetransfer could not send images with titles that began with a space. I retitled a few times and am sure there was not a space at the start of the titles at least not one that I could find. I emailed them the query but did not get a reply. I haven`t had to send self titled images since then so will be interested in your findings as to which system is best,

    ReplyDelete

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