17th November 2013 - Who's made a mark this week?

Today I'm starting with a couple of artist who recently won prizes.

Angus McEwan has received the bronze award in the Shenzhen Watercolour Biennial 2013-2014. He is the only British finalist and prizewinner from an exhibition shortlist of 237 paintings and 2825 entries.  The Biennial has an international panel of jurors which included Andy Wood, the Honorary Secretary of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and Thomas Plunkett, President of the Royal Watercolour Society.

Slipping into the Shadows by Angus McEwan.
Copyright: Angus McEwan

What I find interesting is that a number of UK watercolour painters have been beating a path to the art competitions in China for a while now. However I don't see other art societies for other types of media or subject matter doing this and wonder why this is.

Fraser Scarfe won the 2013 David Gluck Memorial Drawing Bursary - which is offered as a prize by the ING Discerning Eye Competition.  His winning entry was “Tree Study: Kensington Gardens”.

′Tree Study: Kensington Gardens′ (£1,495) by Fraser Scarfe
pen on paper - 18 sketchbook sheets 

This work and the drawings of the five other artists also short-listed for this year's bursary award - Richard Cross, Jill Evans, Tom Flint, Steven MacIver, Fraser Scarfe, and David Watkins are on display at the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition. You can also see them in the bursary section of the website.

Artists and Art Blogs

Botanical

• The Financial Times has an article about a Mystery over series of botanical paintings from the 17th century
• Dianne Sutherland has a new website for online botanical courses - http://botanicalonline.wix.com/botanicalonline
• Shevaun Docherty (Botanical Sketches) has been writing about how Practice makes perfect when it comes to botanical art 

Drawing and sketching 

• Lynne Chapman has some sketching on location hot tips 
• Liz Steel recently highlighted two fantastic recent blog posts by two of her long time sketching friends in Sydney about their approach to travel sketching and reflections from recent trips.
• Wendy Shortland (Quirky Artist) Keeping a travel sketchbook when travelling with a non-sketcher
• Alissa Duke (Alissa Duke) - sketchbook travel journal : the practicalities 
• This is an interview on the Derwent blog with Yvonne Crossley one of the judges of the Derwent Prize for pencil art.  Until 2004 she was the Professor and Vice Principal at Wimbledon School of Art before setting up The Drawing Gallery in central London; the first gallery in the UK to focus entirely on contemporary drawing.

Pastels and pencils

• It's worth taking time out to think about the size of format you use. Karen Margulis (Painting my World) has been posting about the size of paintings:
• The Best Reason for Painting Small
• Painting Large vs. Painting Small ...Which is Better?
• Loriann Signori's use of colour has taken off since she got back from her workshop with Wolf Kahn! See Landscape Paintings - Loriann Signori

Who painted this?

• John O'Grady (John O'Grady paintings) got the answer correct to Who painted this #51?
• Who Painted This #52 is one for the wildlife art fans

Art books

• Thames and Hudson have a new book out called The Books that Shaped Art History

Art Business & Marketing

Copyright

• In the controversial Richard Prince vs Patrick Cariou case, The Supreme Court has decided it will not hear any more arguments and the judgements stand. These have been criticised as leaving people 

The Second Circuit’s decision has been criticised by many lawyers who assert that it does not provide them with clear guidance in copyright questions.

Strategic planning

• This is a guide to strategic planning for arts organisations - Think Big! - available on Issuu.

Marketing via Digital and Social Media

• Cultural Digital is a place to discover and talk about the areas where digital technology and arts, culture and heritage overlap with each other.  For example the Cultural Digital Forum highlights the publication of the results of a major piece of research commissioned by Arts Council England, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) and the The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Summary: How arts and cultural organisations in England use technology
• plus the full NESTA report “Digital Culture: How arts and cultural organisations in England use technology”
• Social media surgery is for a charity, community or voluntary group, and want help to use social media better. They have scheduled surgeries across the UK listed on their website.
• The Arts Marketing Assocation is a non-profit, professional development organisation based in Cambridge, supporting the people who bring art and audiences together.
• Using Twitter as a cultural organisation is a guide which is being continuously updated.  The author is Taras Young, Digital Content Manager, Arts Marketing Association

This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know to get your organisation tweeting – from the basics, through to topics such as tone of voice and the best time to tweet. It also covers a range of tools for managing an institutional Twitter account, as well as scheduling tweets and more.

• Clean sweep is an excellent article about the need to collect data and keep it clean for marketing purposes

Selling art in unusual venues

• So who has had their artwork bought for and hung in a hotel? Read A Place to Stay, Surrounded by Works of Art

Art Collectors and Art Economy

Art Crime

• You know art has achieved real status in society when the value of art thefts total more than £300m a year and are second only to the proceeds of crime from drug dealing.

Art after Death

• An Arts Council report published on Friday - Acceptance in Lieu 2013 - has announced that 30 cases of donations of artworks valued at £49.4 million to public ownership has settled tax bills of some £30 million.  It has also resulted in a number of galleries being allocated their very first acceptance in lieu artwork

The Hepworth Wakefield, which opened in May 2011, has been allocated its first AIL object – appropriately, a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth carved 50 years ago in 1963

• Culture24 have published their take on the top ten contemporary emerging UK artists to watch and invest in. - Ten artists you should be collecting now: Axis picks its up and coming talents | Culture24.  I have to say I haven't heard of a single one of them.

art auctions

• The New York Times reports on last week's auctions of contemporary art:
• At $142.4 Million, Triptych Is the Most Expensive Artwork Ever Sold at an Auction - this is Francis Bacon's three studies of Lucian Freud. I guess having two notch artists involved helps to raise the bidding
• Art Is Hard to See Through the Clutter of Dollar Signs
• Prices That Fly Under the Headlines
• Grisly Warhol Painting Fetches $104.5 Million, Auction High for Artist
• These are Auction Highlights from Christie's (a slideshow)

Art Fairs

• The 26th London Art Fair will feature modern British and contemporary works by over 1,000 artists. It takes place at the Business Design Centre in London between 15 and 19 January 2014.
• Parallax Art Fair - indulges in spamming artists and hasn't got a clue how to write a sentence that makes sense. This is the owner writing on his blog about why fee based exhibitions are a good thing 

Parallax Art Fair is a direct art-to-consumer experience with an open admission policy and makes a uniquely refreshing conceptual statement about subjectivity and the commoditization of taste. Facebook Page

Art Competitions

Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery introduces
the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Competition
at the Press View on Wednesday morning

Spencer Murphy with his portrait of Katie Walsh.

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Competition (National Portrait Gallery)

• Spencer Murphy wins Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize 2013 - My review of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Competition 2013 + details of prizewinners + tips for those wanting to enter in the future.
• This is one of the NPG's own blog posts The Judges' View: Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2013
• I don't think Lewis Bush (Disphotic) was any too clever when cropping prizewinning photos in his review of the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery before going on to make adverse comments about the selection of which photos got in and which won prizes. First it's misrepresentation; second it looks pretty much like copyright infringement (without IMO the "fair use" justification) and third it makes him look like a sore loser.   Taking pot shots does not provide a justifiable excuse for a 'critic' to mangle artwork.

The ING Discerning Eye Competition

• The Exhibition for the ING Discerning Eye 2013 for small artworks is now on at the Mall Galleries - see my post about the prizewinners - Jeremy Gardiner wins ING Discerning Eye Prize 2013. There seems to have been a marked change in the type of art that was selected for a prize this year. Plus one judge scooped 50% of the prizes for artists she selected or invited!!!

CPSA ArtSpectations

• The Coloured Pencil Society of America has a new viewable online competition open to all current CPSA members. Artwork submitted must be predominantly colored pencil. This was the Call for Entries. This post ArtSpectations Fall 2013 - Award Winners is about the prizewinners. The judge - Jeff George - has provided comments with the image of the artwork which was selected which is a novel development in art society competitions.
• Note: Submissions closed yesterday for the CPSA Explorations competitions.

Art Exhibitions

Exhibitions in London

• When was the last time you saw an exhibition of Stanley Spencer paintings? I'm a big fan and really enjoyed his completely different perspective on the First World War. This is my review of 'Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War' at Somerset House
• Exhibitions at Tate Britain include:
• Until 5 January 2014 - Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm The first exhibition exploring the history of physical attacks on art in Britain from the 16th century to the present day
• Until 9 February 2014 - Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists Explore the meaning of painting now through the works of 5 contemporary artists. The Observer has a review of Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists at Tate Britain. 
• One of the Past Presidents of the Royal Watercolour Society Francis Bowyer PPRWS, NEAC has an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art - The Spirit of Places
• Uproar!: The First 50 Years of the London Group is at the Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art recently opened and is on until 2 Mar 2014
• The Dulwich Picture Gallery anounced their programme of exhibitions for 2014:
• Hockney, Printmaker (5 February – 11 May 2014)
• Art and Life: Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis, William Staite Murray, 1920 – 1931 (4 June – 21 September 2014)
• Painting Canada 2: Emily Carr and the Indigenous Art of the Northwest Coast (1 November 2014 – 22 February 2015)

Exhibitions in the rest of the UK

Self-portrait c.1756 by Allan Ramsay, 
Chalk on paper

• The Scottish National Galleries have
• Allan Ramsay at 300 (until 9th February 2014) - he used to be Kings Painter to Geiorge III. This display coincides with the major exhibition at the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow, Allan Ramsay: Portraits of the Enlightenment
• ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois, A Woman Without Secrets (until 18th May 2014) at Modern One (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art) | Free
• In Manchester Grayson Perry: The Vanity of Small Differences is at Manchester Art Gallery until 2 Feb 2014

Exhibitions in the USA

• John Singer Sargent - An Exhibition of Over 40 Paintings and Watercolors (until December 6, 2013) at Michael Altman Fine Art, 38 East 70th Street, New York City (M-F 10:00 am – 5:00 pm). An example is Pomegranates, Majorca, 1908

Art Education

• The Munsell Color Blog has a blog post about How Do Online Color Vision Tests Compare with Analog (Physical) Tests
• A favourite Robert Genn letter from 2006 about colour - About True Colours

Art History

• Amazing as it might seem - there appears to be a record of what Van Gogh did after cutiing off his ear.  Read The Art Newspaper article - Van Gogh’s own words after cutting his ear recorded in Paris newspaper

Art Societies

• I couldn't quite work out where to put this - and then realised that it was actually a comment on the behaviour of an art society - the Royal Academy of Arts. A damning portrait of Britain’s artistic elite is an uncompromising critique of the RA's approach to celebrating the Queen's Jubilee - through a gift of 100 works.

Art Supplies and Art Studio

• Poll results: Your favourite artists' paint manufacturer is Winsor & Newton - Winsor & Newton is the favourite artists' paint manufacturer by a mile - according to the 228 artists who responded to the October Making A Mark Poll. I don't think I've ever seen a clearer result on a poll
• Julian Merrow Smith (Postcard from Provence) has got himself a new easel - with a little help from friends in the USA.  Isn't it great to have friends who can help with shipping!

Techies

Website design

• While looking at photographers' websites for a blog post this week I noticed an interesting fact. Professional photographer's websites are now typically minimalistic with a stark white background - and load fast. 
• So that's one group who know how to get their websites 'liked' by Google! 
• Is this 'the way to go' for artists' websites?
• If at first you don't succeed with your web design you can always try again! How the Internet's biggest sites looked at launch

Google

• The Google Terms of Service was updated on 11 November 2013 - it relates to shared endorsements, using mobile devices safely and password protection.  

Anyone you give your login details to could use them to access your Google Account and the stuff you store with Google. So if you’re asked for your password, think twice and consider whether there might be safer and more secure ways to share the information.

• Can I add my tip which is to also have a mobile specific gmail account and an account you use for relating to other apps and software and not to expose your main account to going mobile or being busted.  I run my online life in complete reverse of what Google want us to do.  I'm super fragmented with a big password book - but it means I don't have to worry about losing the whole shebang anytime soon.

Twitter

• As you may be aware Twitter Advertising has arrived! Some Twitter sites now seem to have a high profile (i.e. code for I've not noticed them before!)
• Twitter has a Twitter Advertising blog
• Twitter's site for businesses has a note about Best practices - Be the best at what, when and how you tweet. 

and finally......

I'm into good architecture - and Sir Norman Foster is fantastic at combining functionality with aesthetics - see All hail the mothership: Norman Foster's $5bn Apple HQ revealed