28 July 2014 - Who's made a mark?

I've had three weeks off from blogging.

• The first week was because I had a bit of a shock health wise, ended up in hospital facing a battery of tests and decided to take it easy for a few days.
• Followed by finishing up the final layouts for the book - which was rather more difficult than I'd been expecting.
• Then I decided I needed a week off. I fitted in some long walks plus some drawing and sketching but a lot of it was taken up with trying to put things back where they were supposed to be "after the book" - and a surprise flood.

Throughout I managed to post a few things to Facebook so this is going to be an update for those who don't follow me on Facebook - plus a few extras in terms of blog posts by me.

Two charcoal drawings by Maggie Hargreaves

Winner of The John Ruskin Prize 2014
(see Art Competitions below)

Artists and Art Blogs

Artists Passing on

• David Prentice died on May 7th this year. He painted some sublime landscape paintings. An exhibition of his paintings of the Malverns "A Last Look at the Malverns" could be recently seen at the John Davies Gallery. Unsurprisingly it was a virtual sell out. However you can see the exhibition catalogue online http://www.johndaviesgallery.com/prentice/. This was his obituary in The Guardian. 

The cover of A Last Look at the Malverns by David Prentice (1936-2014)

courtesy of John Davies Gallery, Moreton in the Marsh

• Inbetween everything else I've been doing my forms for the Florum exhibition in Kent in September. I was very sad to hear of the recent death of one of the regular exhibitors Wendy Cranston FSBA SWA. I have admired and loved her wonderful gouache paintings of fruit, vegetables and flowers for some years. This post Review: Florum 2012 includes a great view of six of her paintings in the Florum exhibition in 2012. 



Botanical artwork in gouache by the late Wendy Cranston

Art History

• Jonathan Jones asks "Is JMW Turner Britain's greatest artist?". Personally I think different people will have different perspectives but few would surely doubt to be included in a shortlist of top UK artists. You can watch a slideshow of 392 of Turner's paintings on the BBC website
• Picasso, Matisse and me is a fascinating video of excerpts from a filmed interview with Francoise Gilot - talking about Matisse, his work and his relationship with Picasso - plus an article which provides a transcript of the whole interview

Botanical Art

• This my post about the RHS Exhibitions: Guidance and Regulations for submitting Botanical Art & Botanical Photography
• For those who can get to the Elan Valley in Wales between now and August, you have the opportunity to see an excellent exhibition of drawings and paintings inspired by nature and botanical subjects by Claire K Ward SBA. 

Colour

• Wolf Kahn shares his thoughts on style, color, and what it means to be an abstract expressionist in this article Abstract Expressionist Wolf Kahn: Spontaneous Tendencies. It originally appeared in the November 2005 issue of The Artist’s Magazine.

Drawing 

• What is drawing? Does this mesh with your definition of what is drawing?  This is an article with images by the Victoria and Albert Museum

The term drawing is applied to works that vary greatly in technique. It has been understood in different ways at different times and is difficult to define.

• This article Why drawing needs to be a curriculum essential is by Anita Taylor who is director of the Jerwood Drawing Prize and the new dean of Bath School of Art and Design. She proposes that 

drawing has creative, expressive and educational value; it remains fundamental to translating and analysing the world

• I'm a speaker on a panel at Draw In! a weekend symposium to celebrate the value of drawing at the Belfast School of Art on 30th August. See http://draw-in.co.uk/ for more details.

Portraiture

• Stuart Pearson Wright is a really interesting artist - I love his portrait drawings. He's also very articulate about and interesting in his exploration of different ways of painting people - and himself.  This is a video of his recent Ted Talk entitled Representation and Verfremdungseffekt in Portraiture : Stuart P Wright at TEDx HousesofParliament
• Another excellent blog post by James Gurney - this time about sketching animals from life - 
Answers to your questions about sketching animals

Art Business & Marketing

art fairs

• Buy! Sell! Liquidate! How ArtRank is shaking up the art market - how software is having an impact on art markets and the valuation of artists' work

auctions

• Who would have thought a headline would ever include these two as partners in a joint endeavour? Sotheby's and eBay team up to stream high-end auctions online. The view is that this is an attempt to capture the eBay customers who bid for collectibles on the site already.

copyright

• Beware the company that snaffles images without permission from a well connected artist like Ester Roi or any artist who has a lot of friends on Facebook.  This Malysian company later paid up when presented with an invoice. So the moral of the story is don't just accept that your artwork might be copied and used elsewhere - send an invoice!

I’m very pleased to announce that I have reached a satisfactory settlement with CP Stationery, the company that used three of my images on their products without permission. They apologized profusely and were quick to send the agreed payment.

This victory would not have been possible without the massive intervention from so many of you. If anybody still doubts the power of social media, this case can provide a strong argument. Thank you for your amazing support and for taking the time to express your outrage here, on your page, and on the company’s page. (Ester Roi - Facebook Page)

• Julia Halperin reports in Artist resale rights gain support in US Congress that the Royalty bill could be passed by the end of the year, or become part of copyright bill

websites and social media

• On 8th August 2014 I'm doing a session on how to get your artwork online and make the most of social media as part of an all-day "techie stuff for artists" workshop at the Mall Galleries. I gather the workshop is now booked up - but if you fancy the idea of How to photograph your work and get it online (topic covered by other speakers include how to photograph your art and copyright for artists) be sure to let the Mall Galleries know!

Art Competitions

Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year

• Very well done to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) for winning Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year - and the the £100,000 Art Fund Prize.  Plus a Sheepish snap won the Museum of the Year photography competition - somewhat of a reversal for Henry Moore!

BP Portrait Award 2014 Exhibition

I did a lot of video interviews this year - as did the people running this major portrait competition in the UK!  Portraits by 55 artists were selected from some 2,300 entries.

The face of Man with a Plaid Blanket by Thomas Ganter

• My first post was about the ceremony to announce the prizes BP Portrait Award 2014 - Video of presentation to prizewinners
• A video interview with Thomas Ganter, Winner of the BP Portrait Award 2014 is the first interview with prizewinners.
• An insight into what makes a prizewinning artist in the BP Portrait Award BP Portrait Award competition. Plus video interviews with the two artists who won £10,000 and £8,000 respectively Richard Twose and David Jon Kassan - video interviews with BP Portrait Award prizewinners 2014
• A review of the BP Portrait Award 2014 Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery can be seen on my blog post BP Portrait Award 2014 Exhibition - review and video. This includes a link to the video I took which takes you on a walk through the exhibition - A walk around the BP Portrait Award 2014 Exhibition
• Video - What the Artist saw is about the BP Portrait Award judging process and features two artists - one of whom was successful and one who was not.
• I have to say my new iPad Mini makes videoing exhibitions and prizewinners so much easier plus it gets much results than my proper mini camcorder. Watch out for more video reviews in future!

BP Portrait Award 2014 Exhibition 

Making A Mark Videos 5:58

Thomas Ganter Winner of BP Portrait Award 2014 

Making A Mark Videos 4:04

Richard Twose Interview - BP Portrait Award 2014 (2nd prize) 

Making A Mark Videos 4:33

David Jon Kassan Interview - BP Portrait Award 2014 (3rd prize) 

Making A Mark Videos 5:16

BP Portrait Award 2014 - Presentation 

Making A Mark Videos 6:45

BP Travel Award

I've got two posts on the BP Travel Award

• this is this year's winner Edward Sutcliffe wins BP Travel Award 2014
• and my interview with last year's winner, Sophie Ploeg (Sophie Ploeg), follows later this week - but you can see the video interview below.

Sophie Ploeg and the BP Travel Award 2013 Exhibition 

Making A Mark Videos 3:07

Jerwood Drawing Prize 

• The call for entries for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014 closed in June

The John Ruskin Prize

• Bury artist Maggie Hargreaves was announced as the winner of the The John Ruskin Prize 2014: Recording Britain Now at the end of June. The Prize in its second year invited artists across the UK to submit fresh visions of Britain’s urban, rural and social environment.
• You can read more about her artwork on her website eg The Company of Trees. This is her blog Maggie Hargreaves. The two works were Slowly Creeping (2011) , 150x212 cm, charcoal on paper and Changing Space II (2009), 150x220 cm, charcoal on paper

The level of detail and large scale of these drawings invites viewers to enter the space depicted and spend time exploring it. Concurrently, as the drawings are approached, the image dissolves and the materiality and process are established; the artifice of the image construction is revealed as a piece of paper with handmade marks, pinned to the gallery wall. Drawing and erasing with charcoal reflects the transient shifting nature of the relationship between people and the surrounding living environment.

• The exhibition for  is currently showing at Sheffield's Millennium Gallery featuring 23 shortlisted artists (from 600+ entries) until 12th October 2014.  Artwork by the selected artists varies from traditional techniques to contemporary visions of Britain.
• The theme and condition for the third John Ruskin Prize will be announced in October.

Packing Room Prize

• It's always interesting to see what wins "The Packing Room Prize" re. The Archibald Prize awarded by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This year the portrait is of 'Sir Les Patterson' one of the messier inventions of John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE - Australian comedian, satirist, artist, and author. Tim Storrier was the 2012 winner of the Archibald Prize

Call for Entries

• There's an opportunity to have your work displayed for sale at the world’s very first purpose-built public art gallery. In celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery, there is an open call for entries for artwork for a special exhibition in the Gallery’s temporary exhibition spaces.

Art Exhibitions

Global exhibitions

In Grounded: the great art treasures that no longer go out on the road, The Guardian explains the various reasons why art no longer travels - and stays at home. They range from inherent fragility or value to weight!

Exhibitions in London

• Making Colour Exhibition opened at the National Gallery with a couple of posts from me to date. I'm going to do one more now I have a bit more time.
• Making Colour and painting with poison
• Cochineal and Carmine

Art Society Exhibitions

• The Pastel Society - 115th Annual Exhibition was held in June at the Mall Galleries
• Still Alive: The Contemporary Still Life - an exhibition of contemporary still life paintings by members of the Federation of British Artists will be held at the Mall Galleries, London from 5 to 23 August 2014, 10am to 5pm (closed Sundays). 

Art Galleries

• The Guardian indicates that Damien Hirst's 'Saatchi gallery' set to open in spring 2015. The gallery is due to house Hirst's own collection of contemporary art. It looks a bit like an attempt to out-Saatchi Saatchi to me.

Art Materials & Supplies

Art media

• Here's news which will start watercolour artists wailing around the world - but particularly in the USA! Kolinsky Sable is made from hair from a weasel -- not a sable - but the The Siberian weasel, Mustela sibirica, is listed under Appendix III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) - and hence imports are banned unless certain conditions are met supported by paperwork. I found blog posts and articles as follows
•  Kolinsky sable brushes banned on Gurney Journey.  
• W/N Sabel Brushes Can Not Get Through Customs - Forums - Artist Daily
• Arcane Paintworks: Importing Kolinsky Sable
• a more detailed comment quoting Dick Blick from the end of last year Wargames and Railroads: Dick Blick talks about the Kolinsky situation
• The Guardian asked its readers "Why are oil paintings valued more than watercolours?" and these are the replies it got
• The New York Times has a article where different Creative Types From Manolo Blahnik to Milton Glaser on Their Favorite Writing and Drawing...
• The European Chemicals Agency is currently consulting on a proposed ban on Cadmium in artists' paints in Europe.Will Cadmium be banned in artists' paints in Europe? is a review of the proposal to ban the use of Cadmium in artists' paints in Europe.
• Three years ago I was doing a series of posts for the travelling artist. This one - Top tips for travelling artists - oil painters about travelling with oil paints - was recently picked up by Art Business News Magazine. 

Art Suppliers

• Pencils4artists has supplied a handy sized version of the Luminance Colour Chart on its website 
• Great Art has now its catalogue online at http://ecatalogue.greatart.co.uk but I'm not very impressed with the search capability or navigation. That said this is a frequent problem with catalogues going online so we'll just have to see how they tackle it and they already have the scope to take orders with their existing website. Being able to find what you want and then go through a very simple process to order it is the "make or break" element to eventual usage of a site so it's very critical to get it right.  GA are still doing much better than Atlantis Art Materials and Art Supplies which is still running an extremely antiquated site and a 2012 catalogue.

Art Schools and Education

• More about the fire at the Macintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art - The Mac after the Fire - an Archive, an Appeal and guess WHO!

and finally......

Giants came to Liverpool last weekend in the form of colossal puppets. This is the article by the Guardian about Royal de Luxe's Merseyside spectacular which was an emotional tribute to lives lost in the first world war

PS I'm 3 "likes" away from 2,500 likes for my Making A Mark Facebook Page - will you be the 2,500th?