Sargy Mann: Thoughts towards a talk - on video

I included a link to a video of Sargy Mann talking about what it's like to be a blind painter - and how to see more and see better - on my Facebook Page at the weekend.

These are some of the words you would have heard from blind painter Sargy Mann in a TED Talk - if he hadn't died before he could deliver it

The video has now "gone viral" - with many people appreciating listening to a man who could paint but not see -  which is why I'm now including it here as well.

It's very impressive. It would have been great to see it as a proper TED talk but I think I like this version better! See what you think, the video is just over 12 minutes long.

At the end I've also included links to another couple of videos about him made by his son

• "Probably the best blind painter in Peckham" a flick through the book of the same name
• "Sargy Mann" - the 38 minute documentary made about his father just after he went completely blind - which tackles .

You can see his paintings at Cadogan Contemporary

Sargy Mann: More. Different. Better. Thoughts towards a talk. from Peter Mann Pictures on Vimeo.

In the last months of his life Sargy was working on a TED talk, which he was scheduled to give in London in May 2015. In early 2015 he had two or three drafts, each with a very different emphasis and he was still coming up with new ideas. Thinking it might help him edit his material down to the allotted eighteen minutes I filmed him trying out what he had written and also kept the camera rolling as he talked about the ideas and what he was hoping to achieve.

Sargy died in April 2015. The talk was never finished but he had continued working on it or ideas that had come out of the process until the very end.
In January 2015 Sargy Mann: Perceptual systems, an inexhaustible reservoir of information and the importance of art was published by spbooks (www.spbooks.org) this publication attempts to bring together an extended version of the ideas Sargy was developing and which were sparked by the invitation to do the talk.

This is a link to the article Parting words from an artist of rare vision in The Guardian where I came across the video.

It covers an interview with his son Peter Mann, and Sargy’s wife, Frances. 

“I have always had a frustration in that people love his paintings but they don’t understand what is to me the most interesting thing,” Peter said. “There was always the slightly patronising ‘isn’t it amazing he can do this and he is blind’. What is more interesting was the fact that he could only do this because he was blind.”

More Videos

So you think you have problems painting?

Every now and again we're all apt to hear from fellow artists who are having a problem with their current painting or have hit a 'painting block' - and just can't paint anything.

It's something which happens to many people and the usual trick is to take a proper break and then get stuck into doing something related - like sketching or reading art books - which may well trigger the urge to create a painting.

However suppose the 'block' you hit was that one morning you woke up and you were totally blind.

Would you even try painting again?  Could you even paint if you're blind?

Well the good news is that you can.

Take a look at these two videos.  The first one is just over 4 minutes and is about the blind painter Sargy Mann.  It's a BBC news 'Real Life' video interview.



The second is a much longer documentary video made by his son Peter Mann.  This shows much more about how he manages to paint and tells you even more about about the inner resilience and creativity of this blind painter.  I greatly admire him for looking for ways of doing working out how to paint within the constraints he's been given to work within.


Sargy Mann from Peter Mann Pictures on Vimeo.
Sargy Mann produced and directed by Peter Mann in 2006, funded by the British Documentary Foundation (BritDoc)

Shown at BritDoc 06, Melbourne International Film Festival 07, LIDF, and Voyages European Film Festival. Peter Mann's film about his father the artist Sargy Mann as he goes through the process of making a unique series of paintings, the subjects for which were the last things he ever saw, and painted after going completely blind in May 2005.

You can see his paintings:

• in this Cadogan Contemporary Exhibition Catalogue on Issuu (which proved completely impossible to embed) 
• or at the Sargy Mann page on the Cadogan Contemporary website 

These are articles about Sargy Mann:

• The Guardian (2010) - Sargy Mann: the blind painter of Peckham
• Port Magazine - 10,000 Hours: Sargy Mann
• Ilaria Rosselli del Turco - A Book You Have to Have (a book review)

I suggest you bookmark this post so that the next time you have a problem painting, you can return to it and watch these videos again and be really thankful you still have your sight even if your inner vision has temporarily deserted you.

Then do what he does - and get back in the studio and have a go!  Try drawing blindfold and see what happens....

Sketching slideshow - iPhoto to slideshow to Quicktime Movie

Today I learned how to create a slideshow of a sketch I did yesterday when we visited the wonderful garden at Great Dixter in Kent.  I've already written about the visit on my Travels with a Sketchbook blog (see A step by step sketch of the Long Border at Great Dixter).

However I wanted to see if I could create a slideshow for this blog and Facebook of the step by step photos I took of the sketch as it was progressing.

First here's the slideshow, then I'll tell you how I got it!  I personally think it looks best in HD format on Facebook.  Apologies to those who saw this post early and got the wrong size version!



Those who know me well will realise I'm writing down the instructions of how to do it next time otherwise I'll try to do it again and won't be able to remember a thing about what I did.

How to produce a slideshow for your blog

I saved my six photos as 1000 pixels wide @72 dpi figuring that should be about right for Facebook!

Then came the search for the bit of software which would put them together in a slideshow which I could put on this blog.

It didn't start well!

First I reviewed both PS Elements 11 and iMovie to see if either would allow me to produce a short slideshow from six slides and concluded this wasn't going to be easy - and I couldn't see how it was possible!

Next I tried out searching for "how to" and came up with virtually nothing other than dodgy chaps who wanted me to try their app.  I'm "app averse" unless it has a good reputation and lots of people have already adopted it so that closed off that avenue.

Finally I took a look at iPhoto - and it transpired this has a "create a slideshow" option.

Here's what you have to do to create a slideshow of an art process or paintings or whatever you want it to be about

1. Identify the photos you want to use.
2. rename them with the titles you want to use as captions if you want captions to show
• If you review the slideshow you'll see I gave mine a narrative description of the stage of the sketch eg add coloured pencils
3. Import photos to iPhoto and identify their location
4. You need to add any information to the image at this stage
• click the little "i" bottom right hand corner of the photo to add information
• locate photo on a map to show where it was taken if appropriate
• provide a description of what is happening in photo if appropriate
• provide a title for the photo/slide
• repeat for each photo in the slideshow if you want there to be a commentary on what's happening
5. Click the + sign at the bottom left of the screen in iPhoto
6. Choose slideshow from the drop down menu
7. Save the slideshow with a title - these are the words which will appear on the first image as the title for the slideshow.  There's no scope to add copyright info so I started the title with the copyright symbol and my name
8. Review how long each slide should appear for -  I used 7 seconds
9. Review themes, music and the rest of settings - all fairly self-explanatory
10. Bottom right of screen - click Export and this exports the slideshow to a move format which was Quicktime in this instance.
11. Choose the size based on where the movie will be viewed.  I chose 960 x 540 pixels which gave 30fps and an 8.8MB filesize
12. Upload to Facebook and YouTube and/or video host of your choice and make sure you've chosen the right size file!

That's about it.  I bet I've forgotten something! ;)

Let me know what you think about the video.

Please also share with us how you create slideshows as videos.

Video of BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2012

Here's my handheld video of a walk around the BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2012 at the Press View at the National Portrait Gallery on the morning of 20th June.

You can hear my dulcet tones at the beginning check with the Head of PR that it's OK to video the exhibition and post it to YouTube. 

I was walking around with one eye on the portraits and one eye on the people I had to negotiate my way round!  I've edited out all the bits where there's lots of people and not a lot of paintings!  The lighting is also not brilliant - I maybe should have tried videoing with my new camera which produced photographs of the paintings which I didn't need to process.

I'd be happy to hear suggestions for ways of improving a video of a walk around the exhibition - as opposed to setting up a tripod and panning.

PS Later today I'm hoping to process/upload the video of my chat with Aleah Chapin, the winner of the BP Portrait Award 2012 and then post my interview with her on this blog.

(I've previously posted my video of the 2010 Exhibition on YouTube as well - with the kind permission of the NPG)

BP Portrait Award 2012

• Call for Entries: BP Portrait Award 2012 11 Dec 2011 Provides an overview of the process and some tips.
• BP Portrait Award 2012 - The Shortlist - identitifies shortlisted works and profiles their artists.
• BP Portrait Award 2012 - 55 Selected Artists includes links to all the artists and a statistical analysis of the entries by country
• Aleah Chapin wins £25,000 BP Portrait Award 2012 Lists the prizewinners for 2012.
• Review: BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2012 (Part 1) Focuses on a theory about what's important to getting selected
• Review: BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2012 (Part 2) Focuses on overall trends and portrait paintings I like
• Video of BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2012 a walk around the BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2012 at the National Portrait Gallery on 20 June 2012.
• A Profile of Aleah Chapin A profile of and interview with Aleah Chapin - the first American female artist to win the BP Portrait Award - in June 2012.

Plus my website - which includes other portrait competitions - Portraiture - Resources for Artists

Video: Andy Goldsworthy speaks about his work

Andy Goldsworthy has intrigued me for a long time.  I'm just one of many who love his work - see About Andy Goldsworthy - British Land Artist.  His books of photographs which record his often ephemeral work are also extremely popular

He's not a man who is much given to interviews and usually only does them in relation to an exhibition.

This is a video of him talking - 25 years ago - about how his artwork and how he creates it in Grizedale Forest in 1987.

Here are some other interviews with Andy Goldworthy:

• Time Magazine - Q&A with Andy Goldsworthy
• The Guardian - Natural Talent
• The Scotsman - Interview: Andy Goldsworthy, artist and sculptor

Review: David Hockney - A Bigger Picture

BBC TV - Imagine - David Hockney a Bigger Picture

David Hockney was recently voted the UK's favourite living artist - by virtue of being the highest placed UK artist in The Times Top 200 Artists of the 20th Century to Now

On Tuesday night I watched Bruno Wollheim's film David Hockney - A Bigger Picture about David Hockney and his return to both Yorkshire and painting. You can read Brono Wolheim's own account of making the film in this Daily Telegraph article David Hockney profile for A Bigger Picture and this article Making the bigger picture with David Hockney

How you can watch this film

First - for those who didn't see it

• if you live in the UK - you can catch up using the version on the BBC iplayer David Hockney - A Bigger Picture
• Wherever you live, you can also see small excerpts from some of the filming on Bruno Wollheim's own Coluga Pictures website. Click the link to see:
• Hockney painting a watercolour and talking about Rembrandt
• Click "Latest" in the menu on the left to see links to two further clips from the film in the drop down menu
• Click "The Making Of" to see Bruno Wollheim talking about the making of the film and yet further clips - some of which didn't make it to the final edit
• Click "Reviews" to see some of what has been said about this film so far.

Next - the good news - there is going to be a DVD. I've asked for details and I'm currently waiting to hear about a publication date an distribution arrangements (bookmark this post for an update).

Why you should watch this film

It's unusual to be able to see a film of an artist working through a process of both changing direction and creating work. It's even more unusual to see a documentary about an artist towards the end of their career. All too often we see documentaries after they are dead with extracts of interviews filmed by different people.

This film records the move from California back to East Yorkshire - back to his home in Bridlington and the Yorkshire Wolds which are beautiful, unspoilt and very quiet - and back to painting.

It's apparent from the interview with Bruno Wollheim that he wasn't too sure what the film was going to be about when he started or how it would finish up. Personally I'd have liked to see it continue with Hockney's recent developments in digital art but I guess it needed to end somewhere and the focus on painting makes for a more coherent documentary. Plus it leaves space for another one about the digital art!

I'm very happy with documentaries which place an emphasis on observation, listening and asking salient questions from time to time - they give you time to think and to respond to what you see and hear. It seemed to me that this documentary was very much about letting Hockney talk for himself about the things he wanted to talk about.

There were also various mini-themes within the documentary

• about transitions towards the end of his career - and how these impacted on his sense of place and home. It struck me that the deaths of both his mother and of Stanley (his dachshund) were both important in bringing him back to live in the UK. He now lives in his mother's house in Bridlington and he loves the fact that the office is in LA and he never gets disturbed during his painting time in the day!
  
• about photography and its place in his work -
  

I don't look through the camera anymore
David Hockney

• about what's involved in painting

You need three things for painting - the hand, the eye and the heart
David Hockney quoting a Chinese proverb

• about painting his childhood (he used to work stooking corn in some of the fields he has painted) and painting for posterity
• about painting as an extreme sport - painting nature outside in all weathers - stripping painting down to the essentials
• about perspective and the principle of the moving focus - and how this affects how you portray landscape. He's very interested in ancient Chinese scrolls where the landscape is painted as a continuous painting in a massive 'landscape format' where you can only see part of it any one time
  
• about drawing - with a brush; how drawing enables you to see more and how drawing more also enables you to work faster
• about the process of seeing and how pictures are the product of subjective experience
  

We always see with memory.... we can't be looking at the same thing as everybody's memory is different"
David Hockney

• about painting on a big scale and the production of Bigger Trees near Warter (15 feet x 40 feet on 50 canvases).
  

It's a real Royal Academy Picture - the big one
David Hockney

In terms of visual images, we see him, with his assistant, setting up his easel and folding table for paints at the side of tracks and Hockney painting - in all weather. He obviously became very good at knowing how many layers are required to keep the cold out! We also see paintings set in their context and in front of the views which are being painted.

As the film progresses we begin to see him working on more canvases at one time - plein air. Plus we're not talking about small canvases - these are big ones. Every plein air painter will identify with the moments when the easels fell over! I did spend some time wondering how they managed to keep the canvases from blowing off the easel!

Wollheim comments on how the subject matter seems unremarkable to him, subjects he wouldn't notice. Hockney comments that making something quite different out of it - through painting - is what makes it attractive. His style of painting is apparently naive and yet, as with Van Gogh, it involves some very complex mark-making within a simplified vision. He strips out all that is unnecessary. He's creating work which is representational and yet is nowhere near photographic.

What was fascinating was that the only time he ever saw Bigger Trees near Warter as a whole while painting it was on a computer screen. Each canvas was photographed individually and then each canvas was added into a matrix of completed canvases which made up the bigger picture. (I'm still trying to work out how they managed the stitching and the file size!) The work was erected with some difficulty just once to check it before it was delivered to the RA for the Summer Exhibition of 2007. You can read about how Bigger Trees near Warter was developed in this interview The bigger picture with Martin Gayford for the Daily Telegraph.

It struck me also that Hockney was maybe 'doing a Monet' - painting a work deliberately for posterity, like the large panels of the Nypheas at the Musee de l'Oorangerie, to give to the nation - which indeed happened with Bigger Trees near Warter when it was donated to the Tate. (The painting is due to go on exhibition in the Autumn of 2009) In fact the catalogue for the German exhibition mentions Hockney visiting the Musee Orangerie to see Monet's panels when it reopened in Paris in 2006.

The Tate called Hockney's donation one of the most generous gifts presented by an artist to a British gallery in recent years.
Independent - Hockney donates biggest painting to Tate

Hockney is knowledgeable about art history and dropped quotations from other artists into the conversation from time to time

Never believe what an artist says, only what they do
Walter Sickert

The radical departure of this documentary is that Hockney wanted to b seen painting. I couldn't help thinking, when I heard a comment later in the documentary, that being filmed painting was maybe his way of emphasising the fact that HE created his work and this was the difference between his work and that of artists whose work is painted by other people and they just sign it at the end! (I think it might have given him great satisfaction to know that he beat Hirst to being the most popular living artist in the UK - he was ranked 33 in the Times Poll while Hirst came in at #53! I guess he must have even more pleased that his 'mentor' Pablo Picasso came top!).

Maybe Hockney's decision to invest both time and effort in this project was about him demonstrating that it's important for an artist's reputation and longevity to be seen to do and not just to have "a good idea".

Whatever his reasons, I thought this was a fascinating film which all Hockneyphiles will want to rush out and buy on DVD - it will certainly repay repeat viewing.

You can also read Vivien Blackburn's perspective on the documentary here in David Hockney. review

More posts about Hockney

Tomorrow I'm going to be reviewing his exhibition Drawing in a Printing Machine at Annely Juda Fine Art

On Making A Mark Reviews, I'm also going to be reviewing the catalogue of David Hockney Nur Nature Just Nature - the German/English language catalogue for the current exhibition at Kunsthalle Wurth - which I bought at Tate Britain on Tuesday.

Links:

• David Hockney:
• the only authorised Hockney website
• authorised Hockney website store

• Bruno Wollheim - Coluga Pictures
• Reviews of Hockney - A Bigger Picture
• The Times - Imagine: David Hockney - a Bigger Picture
• Daily Telegraph - TV review: Imagine (BBC One)
• David Hockney - Resources for Artists (includes a module for Hockney - A Bigger Picture)
  
• Making A Mark - posts about David Hockney
• David Hockney "15 sketchbooks" DVD - a further update (8th October 2007)
• Turner watercolours with Hockney and Shirley (28th June 2007)
• Drawing, tea and DVDs at the National Portrait Gallery (13th January 2007)
• David Hockney - Fifteen Sketchbooks 2002-2003" - update on DVD availability (8th December 2006)
• David Hockney and Shirley - sharing art and sketchbooks (26th October 2006)

5th October 2008 - Who's made a mark this week?

Flying Dunlin by Celia Smith ASWLA
Wire and Tunnock Cake Wrappers
copyright - work: Celia Smith / photo:Katherine Tyrrell

The feature this week is wild!

I was supposed to be sitting in the New Gallery of Royal West of England Academy in Bristol this morning at the AGM of the UK Coloured Pencil Society (UKCPS) - and then attending the Private View of the 7th UKCPS's 7th Annual International Open Exhibition in the same gallery in the afternoon - see the UKCPS News post.

That was before the severe weather warning. There's a band of absolutely torrential rain passing across southern England today. I've had to drive in these severe weather warnings on business before now. In fact I once crossed the Severn Bridge just before they closed it and drove to the west coast of Wales on a Sunday night in one. I then spent the next week finding ways round all the flooding. Once bitten, twice shy!

So instead I'm sat in London with Canary Wharf lost in the rain mist outside my window. (Now there's another series I ought to get going again!)

Instead, I'm going to be writing about the UKCPS Annual Exhibition tomorrow - after I've written the blog post announcing the winners on UKCPS News tomorrow morning! ;)

My feature artist this week is Celia Smith ASWLA who works in copper wire to produce the most stunning 3D work of birds. I was completely bowled over by her work at the 45th exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Art which I went to see at the Mall Galleries this week (my review of it will be posted on my blog later this next week). Every single piece of hers that I saw was absolutely 'knock-out'. They all made me stand and stare as I encountered them from the beginning of the exhibition to the end. The image at the top is one such.

One of the things I really liked about her work was that it actually gained from being placed close to a vertical surface and became even more 3D due to the impact of lighting and shadows. Another aspect I loved was that all her birds were acutely observed from the form to the line to the very behaviour of the bird she was portraying in wire.

She really demonstrates very clearly the huge value to be gained from working from life and making studies before you begin. Do check out her website where you can see more of her work.

Congratulations to....Richard Bell who is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Wild West Yorkshire - his online nature diary.

Richard has got a new book out Drawing on Reserves (nice pun!) which combines a practical guide to drawing wildlife with keeping a sketchbook nature diary.

Drawing on Reserves by Richard Bell
(Willow Island Editions) Paperback
ISBN: 987-1-902467-17-7 (May 2008)

Art Blogs

• First a reminder for all those in the UK that October is the month when we have The Campaign for Drawing's Big Draw 2008 - there's even more events this year for people of all ages and abilities - plus my blog post links to the download for instructions by Tim Hunkin on how to make a Camera Obscura or how to make a Camera Lucida
  
• I had a chance to check out some of the past posts on c-monster and rather liked these two
• Ten tips for making art that will last forever. Or at least a couple of years.
• The week in coma-inducing artspeak.
• Charley Parker (Lines and Colors ) has had the same idea as me and has already written a post about Karin Jurick's new venture Different Strokes from Different Folks (Karin Jurick)
• Tracy Hegelson (Works by Tracy Hegelson ) has got a new blog "Tracy Helgeson" and posted quite a few small works there - take a look!
• Ed Terpening (Life Plein Air ) has a post about the use of roads in compositional design with an interesting comment on testing where the eye lands and how it tracks when viewing.
  

Art and efficient working has received a focus of late by some artist bloggers - here's a couple:

• Lori Woodward Simons last month posted about Freedom VS Self-Discipline in relation to being an artist
• Lisa Call (Lisa Call - Contemporary Textile Art) - who readily admits to also being a geek - wrote about
  
• how she did using My Scrum Taskboard in September. The post includes links to previous posts which explain what scrum is.
• The Top Ten Reason Why I Might Want to Tweet Instead of Make Art

As an artist if I made art 24/7 and never marketed it I would eventually run out of room in my house for the art. I spend a full 50% of my time running my art business.

Art Business, Art Economy and Marketing

The meltdown continued apace this week - which prompted some of the following - plus others of relevance

• Taking action after the bubble has burst - my post on Tuesday
  
• and then Managing Business Risks as an Artist on Wednesday (plus I'm hoping to post more in the coming weeks)
  
• and Art and the Economy - Resources for Artists is the new home for all relevant info - including......
  
• .....Tina Mammoser's The economy - a different take and Marsha Robinett's (The Extraordinary Pencil) suggestions for Recession-Proof Marketing Strategies

I'm looking to add more suggestions from artists about how to cope with these challenging times - let me know if you write a relevant blog post suitable for adding into my new information site.

We certainly live in curious times:

• Speed past this one fast if you don't want to know the Guardian's summary of the UK economy's gloomy all-round picture in economic snapshots - it's very depressing
  
• Just in case you've had a close encounter with your credit worthiness/bank/savings recently you might want to take a look at Lifehacker's Batten Down Your Hatches for the Financiapocalypse
  
• Plus at a time when people's attention is diverted to other gave financial matters, it's best to not forget that there are still fraudsters out there. Internet fraud pushes card losses over £300m - The Guardian reports that Fraud against UK credit and debit card customers rose by 14% in the first six months of the year driven by a surge in online and overseas crime

online banking fraud jumped a massive 185% driven by an increase in phishing attacks, where fraudsters send a fake email to bank customers asking them to give their password and other personal details.

It'll also be interesting to see what recent events in the money world do to the traffic stats for online art marketing sites - see Empty Easel's chart of the different sites he's tracking.

I'm just wondering which of the sites have their figures distorted by forum traffic which appears to represent the site as having more buyers than it actually has. You know traffic is 'clean' when any forum has a completely separate domain name - as Squidoo has for its SquidU Forum.

Dan is doing an update of his site at EmptyEasel.com this week - I'll be interested to see what the redesign looks like. In the meantime, last week..........

• Denise Ivey Telep a writer for EmptyEasel.com wrote about The Financially Successful Artist: Commercial Sell Out or Role Model?

Each group, the “fine artists” and the “commercial artists,” both admit to wanting to sell their work, and to make a living from their creativity—yet there is a clear sense of elitism in the fine arts camp.

I've been looking around for updates on the Orphan Works Bill and copyright matters generally

• Alyson Stanfield has this The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 on ArtBizBlog
• a controversial bill to enforce copyright enforecement has also had a hearing
• In Blunt Terms, Copyright Lawyers, Researchers, Librarians Blast Anti-NIH Bill

Advocacy group Public Knowledge’s Alex Curtis called the September 11th hearings blitz “a perfect storm of bad copyright legislation.”......

Then Kirsty and I explored funding for the arts - which led via a circuitous route to Barack Obama.

The Canadian author and well known knitter, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has just written a searingly polite but vicious post about the recent obnoxious comments about the arts made by Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper

• so started Kirsty Hall as she commented on some comments made in Kirsty's post An average artist responds but she took exception to a comment made in response to Stephanie's blog post (on Yarn Harlot) and explained why [updated to revise a misunderstanding]
  
• ....and I then responded
  
• ....and then Kirsty responded to my comments in More on funding
• ....and I then got totally distracted because I started to read Yarn Harlot and found a link to Tracy in Illinois and her blog Stringativity. Tracy had a a post back in December last year where the blogger wrote about her Yarn Harlot - ness which involved asking Barack Obama to hold her knitting while she took a picture! OK - so I wander around bit while looking at art blogs and this has nothing to do with the art business - but it's a good story and a good blog post!
  

Art Collections and Collecting

• I loved Tracy Hegelson's injunction to Forget the Economy, Go Shopping! Tracy is a painter who is also a collector. But I loved her Painting the Walls (with a lot of buts) even better! It's just soooooooooooooo important to get the colour of the walls right to hang your collection on! ;)
  
• I did an analysis of the figures for the Final Survey Results for "Do you collect art?" and asked some questions........but not a lot of response so far. Do take a look and see if you can work it out.
  

Art Competition and Exhibitions

There were lots of exhibitions were opening in the UK this week including

• The Shortlist for the Turner Prize was announced (yawn!). The Turner Prize 2008 exhibition takes place at Tate Britain, 30 September 2008 – 18 January 2009.
• British Museum - Statuephilia - works by Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Ron Mueck, Noble and Webster and Marc Quinn. As ever it's the bling which gets the attention - read Kate Moss gold statue unveiled at British Museum (which got filed in the Daily Tekepgraph under 'celebrity news') and Art Knowledge's The British Museum opens " Statuephilia ~ Contemporary Sculptors"
• The 87th Annual Open Exhibition of the Society of Graphic Fine Art at the Menier Gallery in Southwark was opened on Tuesday by Ken Howard and includes demonstrations which are also listed as part of the Big Draw's events.
• As indicated above the 7th Annual International Open Exhibition of the UK Coloured Pencil Society opened on Friday at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol.
  
• The Wapping Group of Artists has an exhibition about London, its River and The Cutty Sark at the Guildhall Art Gallery, Guildhall Yard, London. The Exhibition is open from 2nd October to 26th October. Unfortunately I can't give you the proper link for the Guildhall Art Gallery as the City of London's website seems to have crashed in a fairly spectacular fashion! Another fallout from the credit crunch?

In the USA Charley Parker has done a very helpful post about Paths to Impressionism, French and American Landscape Paintings from the Worcester Art Museum

Art group

• How many pastel artists out there have come across the pastel artists group on Flickr? It's discussions are infrequent and I'm wondering if this is to do with lack of awareness.

Art Projects - Working in a Series

• Working in a series seems to have a lot of appeal for a lot of people. Certainly What are your reasons for working in a series? got a lot of responses - which helped inform my new Making A Mark Poll: What's the main reason why you work in a series? which you can now see in the side column
• here are some of the initial responses
  
• Andrea Pratt's post about making the rules (Colouring Outside The Lines ). Check out also her Celtic lunar tree calendar which is stunning!
• Tina Mammoser's Working in a series: a response (The Cycling Artist )
  
• Vivien Blackburn's working in series (Paintings, prints and Stuff )
  

Art Videos

• Further to my post about Ways of seeing art on television'm enormously grateful to Gladys who has found it on You Tube. It takes a bit of perseverance as all the episodes have been split into sections. You start here with WAYS OF SEEING (first episode) 1/4

Art Workshops

• Michael Chesley Johnson has been writing about a workshop with Lois Griffel. See
• Lois Griffel Workshop - Day 5
• Lois Griffel Workshop - Day 4
• Lois Griffel Workshop - Day 3
• Lois Griffel Workshop - Day 2
• Lois Griffel Workshop - Day 1

Although drawing wasn't the point of this week's workshop, Lois noted - and I whole-heartedly agree - that drawing is a fundamental skill for any painter, Impressionist or otherwise. You simply can't hide poor drawing.
Michel Chesney Johnson

Websites, Blogging and the Internet

• Have you noticed how the "Blogs I'm following" tab on Blogger dashboard now has images - much better!!! :)
• Plus on 1st October Google created a new homepage for Google Blog Search which now shows clusters for hot topics plus categories in the side column - although there isn't one for art!
  
• Empty Easel has an article about Don’t DO That! 12 Web-design Mistakes that Online Artists Should Never Make which has lots of jolly good tips. I disagree with just one recommendation (6. Don’t be stingy with the size of your large images.) which is that if you actually upload as large an image as possible (ie the one you get when you click an image to see the bigger version) you're actually creating quite a load for anybody trying to access your blog post plus contributing to how much of their download allowance you use up. Also the bigger the image the easier it is to copy. I always use 500 pixels longest length and less than 100KB as my basic rule of thumb for all images and only exceed that for a good reason.
  
• Last month, Tim Berners Lee announced that he has set up The World Wide Web Foundation. You can read the FAQs here.
  

The mission of the Foundation is:

• to advance One Web that is free and open,
• to expand the Web's capability and robustness,
• and to extend the Web's benefits to all people on the planet.

and finally.....

Two items - which are sort of connected.

Thanks to Edward Winkleman for his post Rather than Checking the Dow Every 3 Seconds which led me to........Crisis in the Credit System - by Melanie Gilligan, a Canadian-born conceptual artist based in London; she had shows at Tate Britain and the Serpentine Gallery last year. I love the fact that it's been filmed in the East End not far from me and I find out about it via a New York Gallery Owner blogger!

Blog Action Day is October 15th and this year the topic is Poverty. Here's the blog to keep up to date with what's happening. Visit the Resources pages for help on ideas. Why not create a draft post now for October 15th so you won't forget?

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

Matt Cutts discusses the importance of alt tags for images

I recently came across this video Matt Cutts Discusses the Importance of alt Tags

He of course means alt attributes - which is the correct way to refer to 'alt tags'

It's especially relevant to artists as it describes why "alt attributes", are important for images in search engine optimisation (SEO) and why you need to avoid "word stuffing".

You can also read the associated blog post on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog here Using Alt attributes smartly

Why should you listen to Mat Cutts?
Matt Cutts is the Head of Google's Webspam team - which involves him in enforcing Google's Webmaster Guidelines and cracking down on link spam.

He's done some nifty videos on YouTube advising about various ways in which people can help their sites without running foul of the stuff that Google (ie Matt and his team) does to catch spam.

This is what it says about Alt attributes on Webmaster Help Centre. In other words - this is a reiteration of what Matt is saying in the video - except this time the example is puppies!

Alt attributes

The alt attribute is used to describe the contents of an image file. It's important for several reasons:

• Googlebot cannot read text embedded in images. Therefore, alt text is a useful way to give Google information about an image.
• Many people, for example users with visual impairments, or people who use screen readers, or have low bandwidth connections, cannot see images on web pages. Descriptive alt text provides these users with important information.

Not so good:

<title>Home</title>

Better:

Best:

To be avoided (may cause your site to be perceived as spam):

Webmaster Help Centre - Make sure that your TITLE tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate

Matt Cutts has to be an OK guy - because he has a cat called Emmy who features on a regular basis on his blog. He then uses her as the example for his technical videos - and then guess what - if you put "Emmy Cutts" into Google images then you get to see stacks of photos of Emmy Cutts! (Thought! I wonder if he would like somebody to draw his cat? ;) )

Now the thing I haven't found yet is the one where he (or somebody else) explains how to add in the alt tags to images uploaded to that well know Google owned product Blogger (Matt doesn't use Google's Blogger!!!).

I've found the alt="" bit in the code for his image. Do I just add in the alt tag description inbetween the quote marks? Answers below using the comments function please......

Plus I'm still trying to work out how I do the alt tags for images on my website. However I have taken to labelling and tagging images using my image/picture software - I just wish they'd label their software with which bit is the 'alt attributes'!

...and just in case Matt turns up - my cat drawings are here and here!

Links:

• Matt Cutts - website and blog
• Wikipedia - Matt Cutts
  
• Official Google Webmaster Central Blog - Using Alt attributes smartly
• My cats - Catnapping and Feline Art