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

I've got a big announcement on my blog tomorrow - and then I'm not going to be blogging for at least a week - plus posting will be less frequent for the next few months.

Can you guess what the news might be? (Some of you already know what it's about but please don't spoil the surprise!) ;)

I was particularly impressed this week with the sculpture in the SWLA Exhibition - and hence this post features images which I haven't posted already.

East Ridge Ptarmigans by Oliver Meller
Portland Limestone

Botanical Art

• Shevaun Docherty has finally got round to starting a blog about her botanical art! See Botanical Sketches and Other Stories - and here's what she's been working on recently A quiet beauty, Hedera hibernica - in which she shows up how she develops a work

Drawing and Sketching

• There are interviews with the artist who won Derwent Art Prizes for Pencil Art on the Love Pencils blog run by Derwent
• Chrys Allen wins inaugural Derwent Art Prize
• Yi Lin Juliana Ong and the Derwent Art Prize - (3rd prize winner)
• Paul Hiles and The Derwent Art Prize (2nd prize winner)
• Congrats to Urban Sketchers who celebrated their 5th birthday this week - here's Pete Scully's post about it  Happy 5th birthday Urban Sketchers!  I'm a bit late to the party but have just spotted that Urban Sketchers have announced that Paraty in Brasil will host the 5th International Urban Sketching Symposium. USk Board member Jim Richards summed up our attraction to Paraty:

"I visited and sketched in Paraty while touring Brazil and Peru last summer. It is all the proposal makes it out to be: drop dead gorgeous, a small time capsule of a city largely unchanged since the 1700s, with very good restaurants, sidewalk cafes, art galleries and a beautiful harbor that allows for boat excursions to nearby beaches and islands. I know artists who return there every few years to sketch and paint."

• On Illustration Friday - Master of the Month is Maira Kalman. Maira Kalman is an American author, illustrator, designer, and book artist.

Octopus on stone block by Bill Prickett
Chestnut burr on limestone
(Apparently David Attenborough spent a long time studying this one)

Painting

• James Gurney at Gurney Journey has announced the Winners of Plein Air Persistence of his video context. The winner in the Live Action category, and the overall highest vote-getter (672 votes) was Frank Hegyi and Shane Kier.  My favourite was the video by Meghan N. Sours
• Banksy's 'vandalised' oil painting raises $615,000 for charity
• The Guardian invites you this month to share your artwork of buildings in any medium - (but not photograph). Some pictures will be shared on theguardian.com/artanddesign. This is a link to last month's challenge to Share your art - your chair artworks.  As you can see most people paint - but not everybody.

Plein air 

• Stapleton Kearns writes about Confounding color and value in the landscape at Stapleton Kearns
• Michael Chesley Johnson (A Plein Air Painter's Blog) writes in Adjusting One's Color Sensibility about the difficulties of adjusting to a new set of colours in your surroundings. He moves between Arizona and the Maritime North East - which have completely different palettes. Even though he's done it many times it still takes him some time to get his eye in.  It's the same when you travel to a new place - make time for your eyes to adjust!

Timber Wolf by Simon Griffiths
Ceramic

Pastels and pencils

• Do go and look at the pastel paintings on Loriann Signori's blog - Landscape paintings by Loriann Signori - they're fabulous! I also loved the little bit of Wolf Kahn wisdom on back home and Wolf Kahn
• Karen Margulis tells is about How I Got Started with Pastels - it has some lovely stories in the comments about others got started with pastels

Pen and ink

• Andrea Joseph (Andrea Joseph's Sketchblog) has done a piece about some art she did for Cult Pens - see penanarama.  Can I add to the endorsement of Cult Pens - they're really great suppliers! 
• Plus Andrea is 'Artist of the Month' on the Cult Pens newsletter - read the interview here  Andrea Joseph: Cult Pens Artist of the Month – November 2013.  You can read more of the Artist of the Month interviews on their website
• Plus Andrea has a book coming out about her work which should be coming out this month - you can see some of the pics in carnet de voyages immobiles

Wildlife Art

My new banner for my Making A Mark Facebook page
Wonderful giraffe by Harriet Mead is 7 feet tall!

• For wildlife artists who'd like to exhibit with the Society of Wildlife Artists and maybe achieve signature membership - my review of the exhibition Review: 50th Annual Exhibition - Society of Wildlife Artists  includes some tips on what they are looking for when selecting art for the exhibition.
• If any wildlife artist who has ever got wet or frozen while observing wildlife in the wild ever wanted to feel appreciated then I highly recommend the video of David Attenborough's speech which has been posted on Facebook by Birdwatch Birdwatch Artist of the Year Award 2013 Sir David Attenborough speaking at the official opening of the 50th exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, venue for the annual Birdwatch Artist of the Year Awards
• Plus another post this week about the SWLA: If you want a lot of people at the Private View...... - the SWLA got over 1,000 people at their Private View.  They were queuing down the Mall as far as Admiralty Arch to get in.....

Bronzes by Adam Binder

Who painted this?

• The challenge this week Who Painted This? #51 omes from Bernadette Madden who sent me a challenge to mark the 50th "Who painted this?". 
• John O'Grady won the challenge posed by Who Painted This? #50 by identifying Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744 – 1818) and writing a very interesting and lengthy comment about her

Sleeping Fox by Adam Binder
Bronze

Art Business & Marketing

• Alyson Stanfield (ArtBiz blog) asks a really great question Are You Too Frugal?. I think she's spot on re. the issues it can set up for an artist trying to sell their work to people who have money.
• I also liked Alyson's post about Multiple Websites for Multiple Businesses. She pffers some really sound advice.
• I occasionally see artists asking what they should do about/charge for illustrations. It all depends on what the proposed use is and whether or not you are an artist (occasional) or an illustrator (core business).  If the latter you might want to take a peek at the ebook advertised on the Illustration Friday site. 15 Steps to Freelance Illustration is a downloadable zip file containing a 133-page eBook and Workbook that walk you through the essential steps of starting your freelance Illustration business

Art Collectors & Art Economy

• China is now the second largest art market in the world. These are two articles about Chinese art and its art market
• Contemporary ink: Chinese art’s next big splash? Gallerists react to Sotheby’s October 2013 - discusses the development of this market
• Forging an Art Market in China - The New York Times reports on a growing pattern of failure to pay for art sold at auction due to allegations about false sales data and forged art.  Facsinating interactive images in this one!
• I continue to be amazed about the tales of fraud and forgery which emerge about galleries - mainly it has to be said in New York. New Details Emerge About Tainted Gallery comes from The New York Times

Iguana by Nick Mackman
ceramic mixed media

Art Competitions

• David Watkins, Fraser Scarfe, Tom Flint, Steven MacIver, Jill Evans and Richard Cross have been shortlisted for the 2013 ING Drawing Bursary Award

Art Exhibitions

Exhibitions in London

• Daumier (1808-1879): Visions of Paris has opened at the Royal Academy of Arts. This is The art of Honoré Daumier – in pictures and this is Laura Cuming's review Daumier (1808-79): Visions of Paris – review in the Guardian
• Castiglione: Lost Genius opened at The Queen's Gallery on Friday and lasts until 16 March 2014
• A very interesting article in Art Radar Asia about the Australia Exhibition at the RA - see How do you solve a problem like “Australia”? Royal Academy curator on the pain and pleasure of ‘nation shows’ – interview 

Exhibitions in the UK

• Mondrian is coming to Tate Liverpool and Turner Margate next summer

Exhibitions in the USA

• "Degas, Renoir, and Poetic Pastels" (October 26, 2013 to January 19, 2014) at the - Cincinnati Art Museum 
• The next big trend in art “Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China” is about to have a major survey exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (10 December-6 April 2014) 

Exhibitions by Art Societies

• The Society of Wildlife Artists' 50th Annual Exhibition continues at the Mall Galleries until 1pm on Sunday 10th November
• The next exhibitions at the Mall Galleries are:
• The 2013 ING Discerning Eye Exhibition (Thursday 14 - Sunday 24 November 2013)
• The New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2013 is open to the public between 10am on Friday 29th November and 1pm on Sunday 8th December.
• Future art society/art group exhibitions at the Bankside Gallery  are:
• The United Society of Artists (exhibition 12-17th November 2013) 
• The Group of Ten (exhibition 20 November - 1 December 2013). The Group are ten members of the The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE).  See more images here
• In the USA Sherrie York (Brush and Baren) has work in The Wildlife Experience in Art - the inaugural exhibition of the Rocky Mountain Animal Artists, regional members of The Society of Animal Artists.  This runs until January 5, 2014 at The Wildlife Experience, 10035 Peoria Street, Parker, Colorado

Exhibitions by Art Bloggers

• James Gurney has an exhibition at the at the Arkell Museum of Art in Canajoharie, New York - Dinotopia art museum exhibition opens today
• Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) is in a group exhibition called Panorama at Peter Lewis Gallery at 5 Church Hill, St. John's in Newfoundland.

Jackrabbit by Kendra Haste
Painted galvanised wire

Art History

• Artwork valued at an estimated £860 million has turned up in a flat in Germany - see German police recover 1,500 modernist masterpieces 'looted by Nazis'. The recovered artwork apparently includes pieces by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Max Beckmann and Emil Nolde which had previously been thought to have been lost. Somebody now has to sort out who owns what.
• Charley Parker has written an update on an earlier post about a fine Flemish painter Pieter de Hooch (update)
• 96 Cheyne Walk, the house where painter James Whistler lived and painted his mother  has been placed up for sale, with an asking price of £30 million - see Whistler’s Chelsea home for sale with £30m price tag.

Art Materials

• Top 5 Art tools in the studio - Tina Mammoser reveals her "can't live without" and value for money top tips
• These are James Gurney's Quick-Sketch Portrait Tools for sketching in the wild
• Engadget has an article about a new capacitive stylus - Pencil on Paper: meet the stylus for FiftyThree's popular iPad sketching app

and finally......

A couple recently decided to get married next to Seurat's “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte”. They don't seem to have asked the Art Institute of Chicago first. - see Couple holds guerrilla wedding at Art Institute of Chicago

The museum does open its doors for official weddings and dinner parties, said spokeswoman Erin Hogan. But museum staffers also know that engagements and quickie weddings, like the one Saturday, happen regularly in the museum's galleries, she said.

Which painting and/or gallery would you like to have got married in?