Sunday, April 19, 2020

Who's made a mark on art during Covid-19 #1

I'm resurrecting Who's made a mark for the duration of Covid-19 - in part because I'm posting less because less of you seem to be reading blogs!  So - for all those of you.....
  • not following me on Facebook - you can still view what I posted there here and there as well even if you're not a member of Facebook
  • plus links I've not posted on Facebook or on Making A Mark!
Here's the ones you missed! This is a round up of my posts on Making A Mark and my FB Page since 1st April 

Categories have some resemblance to past Who's made a Mark this week? posts 

Art Competitions


Ten days ago I posted about Jackson's Painting Prize 2020 - time to vote

Prizewinners for all the categories except overall winner have been announced for the Jacksons's Painting Prize. I'm extremely pleased to see that two of my choices for shortlisted artworks have secured two Category Prizes the one chosen for the Emerging Artist Prize was on my "very nearly made it slightly longer shortlist"!

The winning artworks and artists are as follows. The big prize is announced on

Marina by Conrad Clarke
Oil on canvas, w.80 x h.80cm

Emerging Artist (£1,000)

  • Marina by Conrad Clarke - I really liked this one. If I could have chosen ten rather than six it would have been on my shortlist. One of the reasons was because I absolutely LOVED the artwork on his website. In fact if he'd chosen quite a few of the others for his entry he very definitely would have been on my shortlist!  I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you take a look at the rest of his paintings in relation to subject, composition and colour. 
some of the paintings on Conrad Clarke's website

People's Choice (£1,000)

  • Fergal by Trudy Harman - Over the years, I've been reviewing art competitions and blogging about art, I've lost count of the number of times a dog or cat wins a People's Choice Award. So much so I think there ought to be two - one for the spat among the animals and one for everything else. It's a nice painting - but let's face it, the decision-making is much more to do with being an animal lover and very little to do with the art.  Incidentally this was NOT the painting which won the Animal Category Prize.

Landscape /Cityscape / Seascape Prize (£500)

  • The Hollow Place by Robyn Litchfield - She is a painter and graduated from the City and Guilds of London Art School with an MA Fine Art (distinction) in 2017 - since which she has been winning prizes. I feel certain I've seen his work somewhere before - but cannot remember where.

Still Life / Botanical (£500)

  • Global Reach by Christoper Cook - Nice to see a work painted in graphite powder win in a very unique style. He was the First Prizewinner in the Sunny Art Competition 2019
My paintings are representations of sublime encounters with places; pristine and untouched. I draw from archival photographs and personal documents relating to the early exploration and colonisation of New Zealand aiming to reimagine and examine the experience of forays into a hitherto unknown space

Abstract / Non-Representational (£500)

  • Kigali by Zohar Cohen - He's got one of those artist statements - written by a gallerist - which makes me zone out. Not so this painting. You can find him on Facebook

Animal (£500)

“Painted from a screen-capture of a YouTube video, uploaded under a matching title. A famous family of dogs, vlogged in various scenarios by YouTuber ‘Jenna Marbles’

Portrait / Figure (£500)

  • Dunk by Angela Bell - An artist who was regularly selected for open art exhibitions between 2013 and 2017. You can see more work on Instagram @angebellart / Facebook @angejbell


Scenes of Everyday Life (£500)

Judith Tucker has worked since 2013 on and with a contested coastal community on one of the U.K.’s last existing plotlands, the Humberston Fitties in Lincolnshire. Here, since between the wars, local people and visitors have erected their diverse dwellings, in order to enjoy the simple, restorative pleasures of seaside life.

Jackson's Painting Prize 2020 - prizewinners


Art Podcasts

Art Videos

  • COVID-19 & ART #8: Video Binge - Raphael in Rome | MaM - Binge on a couple of videos about Raphael and the exhibition in Rome to mark the 500th anniversary of his death - which closed 4 days after it opened due to the coronavirus crisis. However the museum is now showing it online!!

Art Galleries and Museums

  • The outstanding Curator for the Crisis is without a shadow of a doubt the Security Guard at the National Cowboy Museum. He was asked by management to post some photos of items in the Museum while it is closed. However he's not only stepped up to the mark, posted some brilliant tweets but also brought a whole new perspective to social media teams in art galleries and museums around the world! (But you have to read the twitterstream to see what I mean)



Honoring The Met's anniversary throughout 2020 with exhibitions, events, and new ways to connect with art.
Here's a selection from its online exhibitions
Listen to a contemporary poet, food stylist, cinematographer, and more, as they take you inside the exhibition and muse on life, death, and lemon peels during the Dutch Golden Age.
There's also a great article by Ben Davis | Art Net News To Mark the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 150th Birthday, Here Are 15 Artworks Symbolizing the Ups and Downs of Each Decade of Its Storied Existence - described as being "From the Robber Baron era to the Global Tourism era" it tracks how exhibitions have changed and what has attracted the crowds.

Plus my post about Metropolitan Cats 1983 - at The Metropolitan Museum of Art | MaM - video, art collection and book

Art History

  • A Brief History of Food in Art from Google Arts and Culture. 
    • Highlights key facts about how food has been represented in art and what it means across the centuries 
    • I've always wanted to develop a book and drawing and painting food. Comes of spending to much time with a sketchbook in restaurants! 
  • It's a sad fact that large and much-loved websites sometimes die. Such seems to be the case with The Athenaeum http://the-athenaeum.org/ which I have loved for many years. 

Art Societies


Making Art under Lockdown

  • The Getty Museum has the right idea - particularly for those with kids. Who's up for a challenge?
    • 1) Choose your favorite artwork
    • 2) Find three things lying around your house⠀
    • 3) Recreate the artwork with those items
  • The Getty's request for people to recreate famous paintings is getting some really interesting results. Do you think they were inspired by the size of the bloke's feet and their similarity to the pic? See Museum Asks People To Recreate Paintings With Stuff They Can Find at Home, Here Are The Results
  • Quarantine Through Art  | MaM - Take a look at a short 57 second video on "Quarantine through Art" - it provides a rather funny critique of life in lockdown via a series of art history pics.
  • Some people get a bit bored during quarantine and then start wondering how to convert iconic paintings from art history into Covid-19 Posters to promote the core messages for this coronavirus crisis. They are very funny! These are Art Of Quarantine: 9 Famous Art Posters Adjusted To Quarantine from Bored Panda



A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on

  • Are you drawing a journal of your isolation? Here's Liana Finck from The New Yorker in Some Drawings from one week at home. I think you might find a few of these 'resonate'.



Marketing and Selling Art



Making A Mark blog posts (the rest)


Blasts from the Past

Before you can add colour you MUST master tonal values.Very often when I look at a painting - and think something's not quite right - it's either the drawing or the tone underpinning the shapes within the painting. This is a blog post I wrote back in 2010 about some very useful aids for developing mastery of tonal values

Art Learning


Art Practice


....and finally


I've also started posting some of my artwork from the past. This was the one you liked the best
...because sometimes when you've not been outside your front door for the last nine days you need something bright to look at. I drew/hatched these daffs in coloured pencils back in 2008(pen and ink and coloured pencils on Lana pastel paper, 14" x 11.5")

2 comments:

  1. You marvellous woman! thank you for keeping me in touch with all things painty, when I am so very often out of touch... right now is no different!! Keep well. x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for all the links...I am finding that people are blogging more/blogging again.. getting back in contact....

    ReplyDelete

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