Apparently rather a lot of people took a look at a fair few posts on this blog in 2014. Over half a million people paid unique visits and created 0.75 million page views in 2014.
That's not to say the posts with the most views are intrinsically better than any of the rest - but it's always interesting to see what peaks interest!
Please note I've left out the normal art competitions and art society exhibitions as I'll be doing updates on those this week and will highlight past posts when I do.
Practical Tips for Artists
- 10 Golden Rules For Every Busy Artist - my version is based on the 10 golden rules for every busy woman.
- Top 10 tips for being an artist highlights the tips offered by Suzanne du Toit in a BBC article. Suzanne won the BP Portrait award in 2013 and I had the delightful experience of sketching with her in November. She's a very fast sketcher!
- While writing my book I couldn't maintain my normal output re blog posts - so took to creating some compendiums of past posts on a topic. This is A Compendium of Colour
- another one of my compendium posts was How to design a stand for an art fair. This is technical stuff folk!
- The very popular post which isn't here is "How to hold a pencil". I really wanted to write a post about it as soon as I'd written that section of the book - mainly because of the contortions involved in actually producing the images! In the end I decided that you'll have to read my book for that - but I will show one of the images.... and later on I'll tell you the story of how that section was produced.
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| this is the basic grip for drawing and is one of four drawings for different options in the book! |
Art books
Books by other artists
- There have been even more published since I wrote 2014 - the year of very many books about Urban Sketching? - does this trend show any signs of slowing?
- Nicole Caulfield shares an ebook about portraits in coloured pencils - Nicole shared her not quite finished ebook for free!
Books by Katherine Tyrrell
My book is published on 8 January 2015 in the UK! It was also published on 1 January in the USA. Here are my posts about it - so you know what to watch out for.
- My NEW book is called 'Sketching 365' in the UK
- My NEW book is "Drawing 365" in the USA - now available!
Please let me know when you see it in bookshops and if you take a photo I'll post it on www.facebook.com/DrawingSketching365 :)
Very many thanks to those who
- responded to my blog post back in January about which asked What's your favourite tip about drawing? and
- those who participated in the discussion on DISCUSS: How to draw with confidence?
- John Smolko who says much better than I could in a tips book what the very good reasons are for continuous line drawings - do please read John Smolko's Top Tip for Drawing
- Preparing images for publication in a book #1
- Preparing images for publication #2 (Image Contributors)
#1 top tip is "assume all art you produce will be needed for a publication"
Art Business & Marketing
Marketing art
- Where to sell art is the wrong question is about time devoted to marketing versus where you sell your art
- Most Revenue or Best Profit? What was the Best Place to sell Art in 2013? - you can find a follow-up poll in the side column. Please vote - the poll runs until 30th January.
- How can an artist find out who bought their painting? a response to a very frequent question which artists ask. The post covers what is normal practice in terms of sharing the name of buyers and comments on the different perspectives of art gallery, art competition and artist
- Don't date your signature on your artwork! is focuses on a major problem with dating artwork - check out the poll results.
- Packaging and posting artwork #2 - this highlighted updates to a very popular post from 2008 which I've updated for current links to keep it relevant
Managing the money
- What can artists claim as business expenses - for tax purposes? - a list of business expenses which can normally be claimed for tax purposes by an artist who is making a serious effort to sell art and make money.
Art and the Internet
This is the section which generated the most visited blog post in 2014! It covers websites, internet marketing, blogging and Facebook. In 2014 I started to deliver workshops for art societies and art venues on artists and social media - and I continued to write about issues relevant to artists on my blog.
Blogging and social media
- Why social media matters in 2014 highlights the major changes people need to be aware of - in particular the impact of mobile devices
- 10 top tips for art blogs arose out of some advice I gave to a prominent art blog. It contains 10 things you can do to improve your art blog using Blogger.
- Tips for repelling plagiarist bloggers is what I do when somebody steals content from my blog - this one is worth bookmarking. See also the post about how to report scraping to Google below.
After 9+ years of repelling plagiarist bloggers and websites I now get straight to the point. It's the only way to get the message across.
It appears there are major changes planned for marketing on Facebook in 2015
- Change in Facebook Pages Rules will affect artists marketing their art
- Marketing and communication - how best to use Facebook Pages in 2015
- Ten Facebook Pages about Art in 2014
- An introduction to Google Open Gallery introduced this intiiative - but it's not been very prominent since its introduction. A good idea without any oomph behind it?
- Has your artwork been scraped? is required reading for all those concerned about their content being duplicated
Websites
Art Exhibitions
- Major Art Exhibitions in London in 2014 - look out for an update with respect to 2015 coming this next week.
- Hockney was at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2014 - and unfortunately I never finished the posts due to being under the cosh with the book.
- Photorealism remained very popular. Photorealism - artists, an exhibition, a video and 71 photos featured is the first and largest European retrospective exhibition of Photorealism the The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
- Major new Singer Sargent exhibition announced - in London and New York - NPG in London from February to May 2015 and then the Met in New York from June to October 2015
- Grayson Perry - Who Are You? - on TV and at the NPG - I've subsequently visited the exhibition - and it's very good.
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| RHS Botanical Art Show, Spring 2014 Best Botanical Painting - by Işık Güner |
Botanical Art - my special interest
Every year I do a series of posts which I know are keenly awaited by botanical artists around the globe - mainly because I'm recording who won the gold medals at the RHS shows in London.
- I think this post, for a long time, was the top post of the year - RHS Botanical Art Show 2014 - Medal winners (It's now been well and truly overtaken by the post about the changes on Facebook)
- Plus every year I have posts focused on tips for future exhibitors Here are my
- More Top Tips for winning an RHS Gold Medal for Botanical Art
- Plus 15 Top Tips for presenting work at an RHS Botanical Art Exhibition
- Reflections on the RHS Botanical Art Show Autumn 2014 was about the Autumn Show
- Three RHS Gold Medals for Botanical Art and a video interview - includes an absolutely fantastic video interview with Denise Ramsay
Art Materials
- It looks as if this post Will Cadmium be banned in artists' paints in Europe? was helpful in getting the proposed ban changed.
- How pencils are made - includes a very informative video
Art on Television
- Like many others I was intrigued by The Great British Paint-Off: BBC1 searches for best amateur artists. I've searched high and low on the BBC Media website and I can find no further mention of it - other than that it's supposed to air in Spring 2015. I'll guess we'll find out at some point in 2015 what transpired - and whether they selected people "with an interesting back story" or amateur artists who could actually paint! Daphne Todd and Lachlan Goudie may be sworn to secrecy as judges or there again they might not be....
- I started to find archive films which have been digitised on the web in 2014. One which proved very popular was a British Pathé film of Stanley Spencer which relates to his return to exhibiting at the RA after he had resigned.
Art History
You may recall the beginning of 2014 was rather wet in the UK(!) By February I'd got round to revisiting Art recording 'The Deluge of 1607' and 'Winter Storms in 2014' which I'd originally posted on my Art of the Landscape blog. What I found very weird in exhibitions later in the year was how so little artwork actually recorded what had been pretty momentous events in 2014. Do landscape artists not see themselves as artists who record what's important in the present day?
and finally.....what's in store for 2015?
This week I'm going to be aiming to do my compendium blog posts about art exhibitions, art competitions and open exhibitions by art societies in 2015.
However I'm currently suffering from acute bronchitis (week 3!) so am not going to be pushing myself - but they will appear soon!
Hi Katherine,
ReplyDeleteNice wrap up of 2014. It shows that the most popular posts have been the ones closely related to the business of art.
Although I did find it via the search box upper left the link for your post "How can an artist find out who bought their painting?" does not work when I click on it.
Happy New Year!
And Thank you for another year of really great posts, your hard work on the behalf of all of us and the art world in general, especially in light of medical issues and your book.
... oh, and I meant to ask.
ReplyDeleteWhat ever happened to the answer to "Who painted this #62" ? Was it ever revealed? I could not find it.
Thanks,
David