Making A Mark - the 20 most popular blog posts in 2023

I've done an audit of my statistics to see which were the most popular blog posts in 2023. These are listed below. It includes posts from previous years which became very popular again. I have written a few well referenced blog posts over the last 18 years....

TECHNICAL NOTE: Google Analytics changed the way it collected information halfway throughthe year and I've noticed while writing this blog post that the top blog posts are very biased towards the second half of the year. That said, hardy perennial posts from previous years "top posts" make an appearance in the top 20 - so the top 20 report is NOT just about the second half of the year. However the bias is very odd....

Portrait Artist of the Year (PAOTY)

In total, this very popular art programme series on Sky Arts generated 50 PER CENT of the top 20 posts - which is some achievement. However it was a very special year for them......

That said, my PAOTY Review posts are the longest and most time-consuming posts I write each year - which suggests to me detail, length and effort might count for something as well as the popularity of the series! They are also by far the most popular posts in terms of people writing to me complementing me on my blog! Apparently I have triggered people from countries taking holidays in the UK to watch the series! It may therefore come as no surprise that.....

The most popular post was Want to watch the Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 being filmed? This is not a surprise given the overall interest in Portrait Artist of the Year and the return, post pandemic, to the public being able to watch again. I've had people writing to me for a long time asking how they can watch. I think it's maybe a mix of wanting to be able to see how it all works in practice and the opportunity to be on the television yourself. In the background of course!

This post listed the dates of the heats and the changes being made for the 2023 filming.....

Interestingly, according to Google Analytics, it had a lot of repeat views per visitor. That didn't stop people still writing to me - but at least I had a blog post to refer them too!

#2 was Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 has a very different start this year! (September 18th 2023) This was of course the celebration of 2023 being the 10th year of the series.

This year Sky Arts is expanding the tenth series to include TWO extra special events

• a special episode - involving winners from the first nine series
• an attempt to set an official GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the most people painting online and in a single venue simultaneously.

#4 was Review: Portrait Artist of the Decade (8th October 2023)

This was the programme when 8 of the first nine portrait artists of the year came back to participate in a challenge to paint Dame Judi Dench in 4 hours.

I also posted the follow up to this episode towards the end of the year Portrait Artist of the Decade Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery - last few days 

This didn't make it to the top 20 but judging by the popularity of the Facebook post and album of my photographs of the portraits hanging in the National Portrait Gallery might very well have been the most popular post all year if it had been published earlier.

#5 was Wendy Barratt is Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 (Series 10). That's unsurprising to me given the overall popularity of this series and the quality of Wendy's portrait paintings. She would have been higher but for the Portrait Artist of the Decade celebrations.

I'd add it's the first time when the winner was almost universally celebrated by people commenting on my Facebook Page from her heat right through to the Final! Which is very unusual!

Wendy's PAOTY Portrait Paintings
(left to right: self portrait submission; heat (Nicky Spence);
Final (Dame Joan Bakewell); Semi Final (Emma Bunton);
Commission for Final (her husband Fred)

Interestingly - and I assume this is due to the repeat of the previous series before airing the latest episodes - #6 was Morag Caister wins Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 (Series 9) (2nd December 2022). 

I suspect the fact her commission painting of Sir Lenny Henry is now hanging in the National Portrait Gallery may also be something to do with its popularity.

Other popular posts from Series 10 included

• #7 Review: Episode 1 Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10). It's always the case that the most viewed of all the Heat Reviews is the first one. I suspect the same applies to viewings of the individual episodes/heats on television. County yourself lucky if your heat gets the first epsiode slot.
• #9 Review: Episode 3 Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) (29th October 2023)
• #12 Review: Semi Finals of Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 (3rd December 2023) - nearly as popular as the final.
• #16 Review: Episode 2 Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) (20th October 2023)
• #17 PAOTY 2023: Commission Painting of Dr Jane Goodall (18th December 2023)

...and now for everything else which made the top 20 posts on Making A Mark in 2023!

Portraits of Dogs: From Gainsborough to Hockney

Last week, I went to see the new exhibition of Portraits of Dogs: From Gainsborough to Hockney at the Wallace Collection in Marylebone.

Crop of Landseer's Laying down the Law (or Trial by Jury)

Whether you are a dog fan or not, it's a very interesting exhibition for a variety of reasons. Here are some of them:

• the paintings in the show are exclusively portraits of dogs - no humans allowed!
• some of the portraits are extremely impressive - on any level
• artists included in the show include some very well known names - including some you may find surprising
• the exhibition has an excellent narrative in terms of themes which tell the story of dog portraits over time
• it's very well presented with good labelling
• you get to see a well known artist trying to draw a dog - who isn't always co-operating!

Oddly, this is an exhibition which had been planned for some time - and then had to be postponed due to the Pandemic. What happened next is 

• the Wallace Collection decided to publish the catalogue anyway (see below)
• a huge number of people became very new owners of dogs! 

I fully expect this exhibition to be very popular and attract a lot of visitors from both old and new fans of dogs - particularly during the school holidays. I recommend all those who specialise in dog portraits to see an upsurge in interest - and they'd better go and see it to see what has prompted a commission!

General consensus seems to be it's well worth a visit which I would endorse

• ★★★★★ 'A treat for art-lovers and dog-lovers alike' – The Telegraph
• ★★★★ 'Charming' – The Evening Standard

About the Artists

I'd heard of most of the artists. They include:

Famous painters of animals 

• George Stubbs (1724 - 1806) - he's best known as a painter of horses - but he's a brilliant painter of dogs too and demonstrates an excellent understanding of their anatomy. He's also a painter of dogs renowned for their bloodline.

Stubbs’s animal portraits were family records intended for personal consumption and not for great public rooms.

George Stubbs (1724-1806) Ringwood, a Brocklesby Foxhound (1792)
Oil on canvas, 100 x 126 cm
Private Collection

• Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) - a very well known painter of animals - about whom I learned something new - his use of allegory in his paintings of groups of dogs. For example, Landseer's painting Laying Down The Law (1840) satirises the legal profession through anthropomorphism. It shows a group of dogs, with a poodle symbolising the Lord Chancellor. This is one of the most celebrated dog paintings of the 19th century. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840

Edwin Landseer Laying Down the Law or Trial by Jury
one of the most popular paintings of the 19th century

In the picture Landseer uses the individual characters of the breeds of dogs to satirise various members of the legal profession. The white poodle, with the similarity of its long ears to a legal wig, parodies the pomposity of a judge.

The painting was recognised at the time as a satire on the Court of Chancery, set up to deal with common law problems such as contested wills. The endless delays in the court exhausted the finances of the litigants while enriching its lawyers, an issue memorably taken up by Charles Dickens in Bleak House.

and 

Reasons not to see David Hockney: Bigger & Closer

I've been to every David Hockney exhibition in London for many years - and reviewed many of them over the last two decades - but I will NOT be going to the David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) lightshow xtravaganza at the Lightroom at Kings Cross.  

• First, because I've seen virtually all the original artwork first hand 
• Second because I'm NOT a fan of huge immersive "experiences"; and 
• Third, although I'm OK with a dark room and a video playing during an exhibition: 
• and I always watch those all the way through
• and I loved Hockney's videos of changing seasons in the Yorkshire Wolds. 
• But I'm not a teenager....
• and I don't want to spoil my memories of "the real thing".

However if you want to get a taste of what it looks like and what other people think see below.

This is a video of some of the 50 minute experience which I found on Facebook (Yorkshire Post)

The Reviews of David Hockney: Bigger and Closer

Seems like I'm not alone in NOT wanting a sensory overload in a crowded room.... I've not seen so many 2 star reviews of anybody for quite a while! 
(If you want to see my reviews of his 'real exhibitions - see the end)

The shorthand conclusion seems to me to be that if this were to be the last show of his work in his lifetime - this would be a major disappointment.

Two star reviews

Gigantic projections of the painter’s work fill entire walls in this immersive audiovisual extravaganza – but there is no real art to catch the memory or move the soul The Guardian

• David Hockney: Bigger and Closer review – an overwhelming blast of passionless kitsch | Jonathan Jones | The Guardian
• David Hockney at the Lightroom review: full immersion into the artist’s career produces mixed results | Evening Standard
• David Hockney: ‘Bigger & Closer’ | Time Out

there’s too much that disappoints and irritates. You don’t really get a feel for much of the best of his work. There are none of the marvellous paintings from the very early 1960s, the exquisite drawings of the 1970s. There’s limited art history, too, so there’s no explanation as to why so much of what we’re looking at resembles the work of Picasso. Neither do you get a feel for the materiality of the media he extols; somehow the luscious beauty of paint, its very stuffness, gets entirely lost when blown up this big. Evening Standard

Non-starred reviews

• I don’t need a lightshow to immerse myself in art | Jan Dalley | Financial Times
• ‘Affecting’ or ‘Passionless’? Critics Are Divided on David Hockney’s Newly Opened Immersive Light Show | artnet news
• David Hockney: Bigger & Closer, Lightroom, review: Colossal sensory overload | Florence Hallet | i

David Hockney at Lightroom

Photo by Justin Sutcliffe

More about David Hockney

I've written about David Hockney on a number of occasions on this blog. You can READ my posts BELOW - they're organised backwards by years. Plus see images of a lot of his artwork in proper exhibitions!

2019

• David Hockney: Drawing from Life (2020) at the National Portrait Gallery (May 2019)

2018

• Hockney adds another way of making art to his portfolio (September 2018)

2017: 

• About David Hockney and Watercolour

David Hockney Midsummer: East Yorkshire 2004 (watercolours)

2016: 

• A biography of Hockney on iPlayer first shown by the BBC in 2015 (and repeated in 2016)

2014

• Hockney, Printmaker (Review #2) - The Etchings - about Hockney Printmaker at Dulwich Picture Gallery
• The Arrival of Spring - David Hockney's latest exhibition - 85% of the digital drawings in The Arrival of Spring had been sold before this exhibition opened at Annely Juda Fine Art.
• Hockney is bigger than Van Gogh!- about my final and fourth visit to A Bigger Picture on the final night

2012

• David Hockney on sitting for Lucian Freud
• Review: David Hockney RA - A Bigger Picture

Woldgate Woods, 21, 23 & 29 November 2006, 2006 by David Hockney
Oil on 6 canvases, 182 x 366 cm
Courtesy of the Artist | Copyright David Hockney | Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

• 22nd January 2012 - Who's made a mark this week? "This post this week has rather a slant towards Hockney, digital art on an iPad and pastels - which pretty much reflects my week."
• 15th January 2012 - Who's made a mark this week? This has a lot of references to the publicity overdrive for the A Bigger Picture exhibition at the RA and includes references to interesting articles

2009 

• David Hockney - recent exhibitions - about various recent exhibitions in various countries
• Review: David Hockney - A Bigger Picture - about Bruno Wollheim's film David Hockney - A Bigger Picture
• David Hockney "15 sketchbooks" DVD - a further update

2007

• Turner Watercolours with Hockney and Shirley - about Hockney's curation of BP Summer Exhibition: Hockney on Turner Watercolours (11 June 2007 – 3 February 2008).
• Drawing, tea and DVDs at the National Portrait Gallery - another long slow look at the at the David Hockney Portraits exhibition before it closed

2006

• David Hockney: Fifteen Sketchbooks 2002-2003 - Update on DVD availability

• David Hockney and Shirley - sharing art and sketchbooks - about the David Hockney Portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and his Fifteen Sketchbooks completed in 2002-3003
• Two London exhibitions for David Hockney about 
• "David Hockney Portraits - Life Love Art" at the NPG and 
• "A Year in Yorkshire" in at the Annely Juda Gallery

and finally for other fans this is the David Hockney website - http://www.hockneypictures.com/home.htm

The Big Drawing Book Review 2013

I have to confess.

I a serious addiction to books about drawing and sketching. For me books about drawing were a way into finding out different ways of drawing, how people drew in the past, how to render accurately - and why rendering in ways which are looser can be more interesting.  Books opened my eyes to what was possible and encouraged me to find new ways of drawing. I developed an interest in mark-making.

Some of my collection of Books about Drawing

Back in 2007, I spent a month reviewing drawing books and encouraging others to do likewise - see The Big Drawing Book Review

Since then we've had a huge resurgence of interest in both drawing and sketching.  I see drawings more often in exhibition. Urban Sketchers got off the ground, other drawing projects followed such as Sketching in Nature appeared and we now even have a new art prize for drawing.

As this is Big Draw I'm therefore proposing to repeat The Big Drawing Book Review in 2013

The Big Drawing Book Review: What does this involve?

The idea is simple. I'll explain what I'm doing below.  If you'd like to join in and also rate the drawing books you like or recommend that would be wonderful - it's good to share!

What I will be doing

This October I'm going to be reviewing books about drawing - instruction books, books about drawings by specific artists, reviews of drawing practices, and books about sketchbooks - on my blog Making A Mark Reviews.

My reviews will focus on:

• Basic Facts about the book - title, author, publisher - and who the book is aimed at. 
• My opinion about the content - with reasons. 
• Who the book is suitable for eg 
• beginner - somebody wanting to learn how to draw 
• improver - somebody wanting to learn more and improve their drawing 
• advanced - somebody who is already knowledgeable and skilled who wants to face new challenges, to learn about artists and different drawing practices 
• Readability - A comment on how well the author writes and how accessible the book is. Are points made clearly - and can I remember them afterwards! Also what level of reading the book is pitched at. 
• Presentation/Quality of Binding - Whether it looks good and feels good. For me this is often influenced by the quality of the images and the way text is laid out 
• Value for Money - Is it good value for money? 
• Overall quality - Would I recommend it - and if so, the reasons why.

Every Sunday I will then highlight the books I've reviewed on "who's made a mark this week?"

Last time I also developed a website which highlighted books about drawing and sketching I recommended.  See The Best Books about Drawing and Sketching.  This also linked to reviews by me and the other bloggers who participated in the Review.

That site has become extraordinarily long - and very popular - since 2007 and is now slow to load. Unfortunately the site format where it's hosted has changed recently. As a result, I'm now looking to revise it into a number of sites which are more targeted to particular interests e.g. advanced drawing - or books most suitable for beginners; or people who want to draw specific subjects or learn specific techniques e.g. perspective drawing.  See How to draw perspective for an example of the new sites I'm developing.  The existing site will then become a hub for the specific interests.

If you want to join in with The Big Drawing Book Review 2013:

• YOU need to send me a link to your review 
• I will then include a link to your blog post in the listing each week on this blog.

I'm going to be using the rating we all used last time to sum up the book.  This is it.  Please also use it if you feel comfortable with it.

Rate your book!Finally, after making it clear who you think the book is aimed at, try and decide whether it rates:

• 5 pencils - go out and buy this book right now if you have the money. In your opinion, an essential book for anybody seriously interested in drawing and/or learning more about drawing. 

• 4 pencils - a seriously good book about drawing; definitely one you want to own at some point - maybe one for the Christmas present list if you're broke 

• 3 pencils - good effort but nothing which really distinguishes it from other books. It's just this author's take on the basics. The sort of book which is good while you are reading it but doesn't stick in your memory. 

• 2 pencils - undistinguished in your view. For example: content may be a rerun of previously published books and/or remixed with a new front cover; presentation may not be particularly noteworthy. 

• 1 pencil - buying this book would damage your wallet but is unlikely to enhance either your knowledge, skills or enjoyment. It may also hurt your eyes! (Unfortunately there are a few of these out there - although I'm assuming we've probably weeded through a few of these without buying!) 

If you've got any queries please leave a comment below

If you'd like to join in also leave a comment and I'll put your blog into my feedreader.  You can do as many or as few reviews as you like.

Books about Sketchbooks on my bookshelves

Note:  This project has been initiated by me in the spirit of learning that underpins The Big Draw but is not registered with or associated with The Big Draw which is more event-related.

Best Pictures and Best Art Blogs 2012 - a review

Welcome to the start of my SEVENTH END OF YEAR REVIEW of top art blogs, top artwork and the art economy!

This is my 'master plan' post which keeps me on track and focuses on the arrangements and timeline for nominations, voting and announcements relating to:

• The MaM Award for Best Picture on an Art Blog - across 4 categories
• The Making A Mark awards for Top Art Blogs - across 4 categories

Plus dates for my own personal end of year review of what happened to art in 2012 and what I've been getting up to.

UPDATE: Shortcuts to the posts inviting nominations for the various awards are posted at the top of the right hand column

The Making A Mark Art Blog Awards 2012 

- Best Picture on an Art Blog

Nominations

This Saturday 8th December I will post four separate posts on this blog.

These will invite you to nominate the BEST PICTURE in the different categories associated with the Making A Mark Art Blog Awards.  

These are as follows:

• Best Portrait / Figures - portrait of a single person (or animal) or group or an artwork which is predominantly figures
• Best Landscape / Interior - an artwork which is about a place - urban or rural, land or sea or sky, inside or out
• Best Still Life - contrived or found, a narrative or an accident, large or small
• Best Nature - botanical, natural history or wildlife

Do not write to me yet! To submit a nomination you will need to leave a comment on the relevant blog post once it's published on Saturday.

VOTING: The Making a Mark Prize for Best Picture on an Art Blog 2012

On Monday 24th December I will post the nominations received for the following Making A Mark Awards

• The MaM Prize for best rendition of person or persons
• The MaM Prize for the best portrayal of a place
• The MaM Prize for best still life
• The MaM Prize for best celebration of nature

The Short List for each category will be posted on Wednesday 26th December 

You will then be invited to vote - after Christmas - on the shortlist of candidates for best artwork in the different categories. 

The voting

• starts on Wednesday 26th December
• closes a minute after midnight on Sunday 30th December

The Best Picture in each category - plus the runners up - will then be announced on Monday 31 December 2012.

The Overall Winner of the Making A Mark Best Picture of 2012 on an Art Blog is also announced in the same blog post.

________________________________

The Making A Mark (MaM) Awards - Best Art Blogs 2012

Below you can see the previous winners of The Making A Mark Awards for the Best Art Blogs.  I'm sure you will agree that the names of those who have won these awards makes for an impressive line up!

My current thinking is I'll stick with the same awards as last year - but you never know......

Nominations:  I'll be publishing posts about the Making A Mark Awards for the Best Art Blogs in 2012 next week (week commencing 10th December) for each of the four categories and inviting nominations from you.

Announcements of Awards: I will then post the details of who has won each MaM Award will be posted in two posts on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th December

GENERATING ART

These awards relate to generating art either as an individual artist or as an art group - formal or informal.

11 March 2012: Who's made a mark this week?

Freeze Frame by Neville Gabie
a new take on Seurat's bathers at Asniere
my photo of his photo at the View Tube

We did the Olympic Marathon walk this afternoon - which is basically walking from my home up to the Olympic site and then home again (the long way!)  It took us three hours. I photographed art en route and the images are in this post.

This included:

• Neville Gabie is the Artist in Residence on the Olympic Site and his exhibition of photographic and film works which can be seen at the View Tube on the Greenway at Stratford.  I rather liked his film of workers uncovering and testing all the seats in the stadium but thought his most impressive piece is the large photograph called Freeze Frame which recreates Seurat's Bathers at Asnieres on the banks of the River Lea.  This is an article about the work and who's in it.
• The Arcelormittal Orbit - which is a 115 metres (377 ft) high observation tower in the Olympic Park by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond.  It might be the tallest sculpture in London - and a unique experiment between sculpture and structural engineering - but I actually think it's rather gross!

The ArcelorMittal Orbit - next to the Olympic Stadium

• Fish Island and the Wick Lane - across the River from the Olympic Stadium is a major centre for artist studios in East London.  This was seen on our walk away from the area

Boring walls....

The Olympics also have something called Art in the Park.

Art Blogs

12 February 2012 - Who's made a mark this week?

This week has been a very Lucian Freud week with two tours of the new exhibition on Wednesday, a visit to Christies to see The Printer's Proof: Etchings by Lucian Freud from the Studio Prints archive  this afternoon (which is at auction on Wednesday) and tomorrow morning I'm off to see a PV of a comprehensive exhibition of his drawings

Lucian Freud

La Voisine (The Neighbour), 1947 

Crayon 41.3 x 34.3 cm (16.26 x 13.5 in)

Blain|Southern - Lucian Freud: Drawings

I've had other priorities in the last few weeks and the major (time-consuming) post which is "who's made a mark this week" has very much been squeezed.  Accordingly this post has rather more of my posts than usual - as I know people use this post to catch up on my blog.

Art Blogs

Phew!

snapped in the National Gallery Bookshop
Color and Light was found inbetween
Masterpieces in Detail and How to paint like Turner

What is it about the end of one year and the start of the next which makes what used to be a fairly routine exercise into a marathon?

Answer - It's not about the end of the year (although changing categories and setting up brand new files did complicate matters).

It's actually about the fact that the structure of the Art Book market and retailing patterns are changing enormously right now - and the data patterns keep changing too in an effort to keep up!

Anyway, my monthly book reviews of the charts have been done (not easy!) and I now have:

• a commentary Makingamark's Top Ten Fine Art Books in January 2012 - now on Making a Mark reviews..... covering:
• changes in where I post about the best and newest art books each month
• changes in the marketplaces for both book publishing and book retail
• an awful lot of updated and restructured ART BOOK sites - the main changes being on:
• Makingamark's Top 10 Fine Art Books - which now has the best and top rated Fine Art Books in January 2012 - some of which were not published until 1 February!  I've changed the categories of best and top rated books - and these now relate to:
• Drawing
• Painting
• Artists
• Art History
• Art Business
• The Best NEW Art Books - the best NEW books in January 2012
• more NEW books about drawing in 2012: NEW Books About Drawing
• more NEW books about painting in 2012: NEW Books about Painting
• The Best Art Business Books

As a result of this, Who's made a mark this week? got bumped and will appear later today.

Read my review of Color and Light

My Book Review: Color and Light by James Gurney is now posted over on Making A Mark Reviews - click the link to have a read.

Back cover of
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter

I now know what I should have been doing when I tried to do a reverse atmospheric perspective for my A level Art exam - without having been taught how they work! I've spent years trying to get it right - and finally I've got a book which tackles this!

For those thinking of subscribing to Making A Mark Reviews blog, my next book review is of Studio and Business Practices by Deborah Paris. See the side column for the subscription link.

Summer Slow Down

Having had a week off from posting to Making A Mark, I've decided to take a lesson from cat Cosmo and "chill out" by continuing with a summer slow down strategy for this blog

Cosmo chillin'

pen and sepia ink

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Lots of you are on holiday - as is "he who must not be bored while I sketch" - plus we'll be having lots of days out between now and the end of August.

I also found that the break last week didn't mean I wanted to stop blogging.  Rather that I enjoyed the time more since it gave me to catch up with some posts on my other art blogs which have been sadly neglected of late during the mega-planning blight.  I'm also trying not to be seduced by the fact the planning blog is really beginning to take off - got to stop watching those stats!

Consequently I'm implementing an official slow down on Making A Mark until the end of August which will mean:

• NOT posting daily as I normally do
• periodic "who's made a mark this week" posts but they will not be weekly
• occasional important posts
• more profiling of work by other people
• some delving into the archives of past posts which will not have been read by most readers
• some referencing posts on other blogs because....
• there will probably be MORE posts on my other blogs which always get squeezed when I'm very busy.  For example, there's a series of posts coming up this next week on The Art of the Landscape and I'll probably be posting to my sketchbook blog as we get out and about.  I may even get round to finishing off posts about my last holiday in France!
• I'll be a lot more refreshed when it comes round to September!!

In the meantime, here's an article for you all to read - How to Slow Down Now (Please Read Slowly) - by the Slow Master, Christopher Richards of SlowDownNow.org,

Is anybody else slowing down for summer?

___________________________

Catch-up:  Here's the blog posts I wrote last week

The Art of the Landscape

• Fred Inglis on the value of the landscape painting
• Plein Air Pastel Painting with Richard McKinley
• Landscape Painting Videos by David Curtis

Travels with a Sketchbok in...... 

• The Portrait Cafe

Making A Mark reviews......

• Product Review: Talens Van Gogh Coloured Pencils

Watermarks

• Maritime Inversion, Big Sur

24th May 2010 - Who's made a mark this week?

This is the sketch which I did yesterday because I went out in the sunshine rather than write this post!

Yellow Irises at the Lily Pad Pond
11" x 16", coloured pencils in Large Molsekine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

It was very 'Spring' green although maybe not quite as green as this sketch would suggest!

I've got to go and have another go at drawing that water. Every time I do I begin to understand why Monet painted 240 odd paintings of his waterlilies on the pond he built at Giverny! (see Gardens in Art: Monet and the water garden at Giverny)

This is going to be a briefer post than usual - the weather continues to be good and I've got an exhibition to go to.....

Art Blogs

Drawing and sketching

• Jan Blencowe has posted recently about 3 Reasons a Sketchbook -Journal is Important for Artists
• Laura Frankstone (Laurelines) has posted her wonderful Turkey Sketchbook 2010 on Flickr. You can also see them on her blog in Turkey sketches, part one!, part two, part three and last sketches

Coloured Pencils and Pastels

• Congrats to Margaret Dyer (Small Pastel Studies by Margaret Dyer) who was runner up in the cover competition run by American Artist Magazine - see American Artist Magazine, July issue is on the stands..

Landscape art

• Landscape painting in pastels by pastel artist and tutor Deborah Secor has published more chaptes: Chapter 14: Rocks and Chapter 15: Shadows
  

Art Competitions

• This is the first year I've posted about the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010 - Call for Entries
• Thanks to Jan Blencowe (Jan Blencowe The Poetic Landscape) for highlighting Renee Phillips's post The Artrepreneur Coach": Juried Competitions: How to Improve Your Odds and listing 44 things you should know!
  

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

art education

• a very thoughtful post by Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) on Paying back

I read an interesting piece tonight about an artist, perhaps intermediate level, who was wondering if she should give lessons in oil painting to people who asked. Her dilemma wasn't whether she was experienced enough in technique and teaching to do, but that if she taught people, they would become her competition.

workshops

• Sadie Valeri (Sadie J Valeri) is offering the following workshops this summer
  
• Figure Drawing Workshop, June 21-25
  
• Still Life Oil Painting Workshop, June 28-July 2
• Cynthia Padilla (Art Workshops-Cynthia Padilla) who leads the Botanical Art Group on Yahoo has a Botanical and Nature Sketching workship in Guatemala (July 22 - 31, 2010)

tips and techniques
Casey Klahn (Pastel) tells us all how to go about Reclaiming La Carte

Art Exhibitions and Open Studios

major museums

• Tate Liverpool has a major exhibition by Picasso
  
• At the British Museum, The Printed Image in China presents a history of 1,300 years of Chinese printing using the Museum’s collection,
  one of the finest and most comprehensive outside Asia. 6 May – 5 September 2010 / Rooms 90 and 91 / Free
  
• Rome has got a new museum for 21st century art. The National Museum of 21st Century Arts, better known as the Maxxi, will be Italy's first state museum for contemporary art and architecture and has been designed by Zaha Hadid. Read Rome Turns to the Art of Today. It opens on May 30th 2010.
  
• The V&A has an exhibition to coincide with the Modern Masters series on the BBC: Matisse, Picasso, Dali and Warhol

This display features prints by four of the 20th century's greatest artists: Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. Over 50 works drawn from the V&A Museum's collections have been selected to illustrate these modern masters' engagement with the printed medium. Both celebrated and less familiar prints in a range of techniques are included, spanning a period of 75 years and representing one of the most creative and diverse artistic periods in the history of western art.

Regional venues

• This is an account of A Visit to the 2010 American Masters Show SCNY at the Salmagundi Club in New York.

Art societies

This is my Review: Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2010

• Felicity House has sent me an invite to come down to her Open Studio held during Dorset Art Weeks. It's an absolute model of what an invite to an Open Studios should be: good-looking art which is representative of the artist, dates and times and all the information I need to get there including a map! Plus she's got it on her website too!

• Felicity is venue 302 in Dorset Art Weeks schedule of over 600 artists in its 10th biennial event. I'm afraid I'm not a fan of their website. Its map mode is not at all obvious. See if you can spot the link in the main menu! However, once you've found it, if you click on a pin it tells you what the studio is about. Dorset Art Weeks last from the 29th May to 13th June.
  

Art History

• The Modern Masters series about four artists who changed the world continues on the BBC on Sunday nights and can be downloaded from BBC iPlayer for those who have access. For everybody else you should be able to review the virtual exhibition on the BBC website
  
• Matisse - the King of Colour
  
• Picasso - Genius of Modern Art
• Salvador Dali - Agent Provocateur of Modern Art
• Andy Warhol - King of Pop.
• You can also see some BBC archive footage of Picasso at home with his family. So who knew Picasso was a cat lover?
• Another really wonderful online resource is The amazing Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource - which originates from Birmingham art Gallery
  
• Yet another art theft and this time they're asking Who failed to switch on the alarm?

There's a lot of memorial events and items on the Internet at present commemorating 65 years since the end of the second world war in Europe

• The Imperial War Museum will host a one day Conference on 9th June which confronts a difficult issue - the making, exploitation and re-appropriation of public memory surrounding memorials. The immediate context is the display at Tate Britain concerning Moore and Auschwitz. Henry Moore chaired the Jury of an international competition (1958-9) to design a public memorial to the ‘Victims of Fascism’ at Auschwitz-Birkenau, although a commission was never realised. The conference explores the dilemma that faced that jury - how to mark a political event with a public memorial.
• the Imperial War Museum also has a pdf file about Despatches Winter 2008: Unspeakable: The Artist as Witness to the Holocaust
  Ulrike Smalley takes a closer look at art produced in response to the Holocaust.

Art Supplies

Three posts on Making A Mark Reviews for pencil artists

• CPSA Lightfastness Handbook Version 6 - out now check out how to get hold of it and how much it costs.
  
• A new colour tip for Caran d'Ache Luminance 6901
• Product Review: Derwent Pocket Pencil Wrap

Copyright

• recommended read. The Etsy blog The Storque has a recent post about UK Edition: Big Brand Copycats. The issue is the boundary and overlap between copyright infringement and 'fair use'

what happens when you suspect a Big Brand has actually ripped off your original designs? Is there anything you can do about it or is it unrealistic to expect a large corporation to take any notice whatsoever?

• Last month, there was an equally good post about Fan Art and Fair Use: One Truth and Five Myths

Opinion Poll

Last chance to vote on the Making A mark opinion Poll for May - Have you bought a painting DVD? (see right hand column if you've not yet voted)

Websites, webware and blogging

Facebook and Privacy - is getting way beyond a joke

Facebook continues to cause concern about security but its growth continues unabated as this post on the register bears witness. However......

High-profile users, including developers at Google, security experts and journalists, have quit Facebook and posted instructions on how others can do the same. Nascent privacy-conscious social network Diaspora has been earning slews of favourable ink.

• Wall Street Journal identified this Facebook, MySpace Confront Privacy Loophole - which gives rise to serious concerns about the assurances on privacy given by Facebook. The simple answer is to avoid sharing any personal data beyond what is essential on Facebook. The more rigorous answer is government regulation and big fines linked to a percentage of their total revenue stream for advertising for breaches of privacy standards. I guarantee they'll then address such issues.
  

Facebook, MySpace and several other social-networking sites have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers' names and other personal details, despite promises they don't share such information without consent.

• According to PC Magazine - Facebook Prepping Changes to Privacy Policy to make it more understandable.
  
• Meanwhile, two Toronto-based Facebook users set up quitfacebookday.com, urging other Facebook users to cancel their accounts on May 31 - Quit Facebook Day. Matthew Milan and Joseph Dee wrote on the site....
  

  For us it comes down to two things: fair choices and best intentions. In our view, Facebook doesn't do a good job in either department

• .......and this is diaspora and this is their blog

computers

• Techie: How to remove a CD or DVD from an iMac is me recording what to do next time I fail to engage my brain. Please comment if anybody knows the answer to Robyn's problem - persuading the computer that the disc has been removed!
  

and finally........

Apparently, according to the Art Newspaper, Posh and Becks are the new power couple in contemporary art. Personally I didn't think they had quite accumulated the billions required to be a high status collector these days. However it is interesting that they have invested in art and, it is said, patronised the White Cube to do so. The 'announcement' looked suspiciously like indirect White Cube advertising to - aimed at the WAGs of the upcoming World Cup. Does this mean art has been 'elevated' to the status of something for the 'fashionistas' to talk about while the boys are off running round a pitch kicking a ball?

22nd November 2009 - Who's made a mark this week?

Yesterday was also the 5th anniversary of the very first Sketchcrawl - see Sketchcrawl is 5! (Plus 25th Worldwide Sketchcrawl tomorrow)

Mathew Brehm (Sketchblog) who teaches architecture at the University of Idaho and is a contributor to Urban Sketchers did a rather nice title page for his sketchcrawl in Moscow, Idaho.

25th Worldwide Sketchcrawl by Matthew Brehm

This is Urban Sketcher's interview with Enrico Casarosa (Enrico's blog) - the man who started it all- Five years later, Casarosa's sketchcrawls keep us drawing

The act of drawing has a meditative quality and that's what's great about it, it forces you to slow down and really take into account what you are seeing.

Here are some posts I found of people out sketching on Urban Sketchers. It is of course totally predictable that the east is posting faster than the west!

• Sydney Sketchcrawl
• #25th Sketchcrawl around East Gate, Seoul
• SketchCrawl Singapore Style
• 25th World Wide SketchCrawl in Tokyo
• SketchCrawl - Moscow, ID

If you want to catch the next one try following Sketchcrawl on Twitter

Art Blogs

• This month, it's five years since Cindy Woods started her blog - Learning Daily . Ronda is stil posting Cin's work - and I've still got it in my blogroll. Yesterday was the first anniversary of Cin's death - see Cindy Woods - One year on and this great photo post from Wally on CrackskullBob
• Sarah Wimperis has written a hugely inspirational from the heart post on Watermarks - Bring out Your Inner Artist and Shine!
• Roz Stendhal (Roz Wound Up) had two interesting posts last week about Writing Text in Columns on Your Journal Page—Part 1 and Writing Text in Columns on Your Journal Page—Part 2
• Charlie Parker (Lines and Colors ) marked the 1st birthday of Urban Sketchers with Urban Sketchers turns 1
• Boarding Pass - Laura Frankstone is an interview with Laura Frankstone (Laurelines) about her trips by Anne (Prêt à Voyager) = which means 'ready to travel'.
• Paula Pertile (Drawing a Fine Line) writes about The joy of prints (she's being ironic!)

More blogging about trips to France

• More from Joan (Watercolors by Joan) - sketching in Provence

• Rural Provence Scenes
• The Charm of Provence
• Eygalieres Plus
• and by me in Normandy - Auberge du Terroir, Servon

Early evening at the Auberge du Terroir
8" x 10", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Art Business & Marketing

• I've been checking out the new ArtBusiness.com website and I don't think I've seen this article before - Hopeless Artist Emails and How to Make Them Better. This is how it starts - you have been warned!

I have no idea when this started or who the original perpetrators were, but I get more pointless, idiotic, ill-conceived and just plain lame single-sentence (and sometimes slightly longer) email communications like these (examples provided) from artists the world over trying to get exposure for their art-- way more than I would have ever imagined possible.

Art Collectors - and the art economy

• Lee Rosenbaum (Culturegrrl) reports thatthe Metropolitan Museum’s Red-Ink 2009 Annual Report, Now Online Total endowment funds down 26%. Museum's deficit: $8.4 million. It's not going to 'go broke' as it has assets of $2.9 billion and revenue of $213 million - however it just goes to show how the recession is affecting every part of the art economy
• She also came up with a novel approach to blogging CultureGrrl’s Pay-to-Play: No Donors, No Posts - and got 3! Not quite sure what that says..........
  
• This is a past about How Art and Stocks Trade: Relationship between Art and Equity Prices - ie if wealthy people have a lot of disposable cash then the price of art goes up - which means it's absolutely nothing to do with any intrinsic value.
  

In summary, evidence suggests that: (1) the wealth of the wealthy drives art prices; and, (2) art prices tend to evolve with, or somewhat behind, the equity market at a similar pace.

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

Art school

• I think I know what I might be writing about on Tuesday! According to the BBC Saatchi says 'Don't be an artist'. This is by way of a prelude to the BBC 'X-factor' type programme School of Saatchi which starts on BBC2 on Monday 23 November (9.00-10.00pm BBC2), the synopsis being................
  

Powerful art world supremo Charles Saatchi sets six unknown artists up in their own East London studio for 10 weeks and commissions them to make a series of ambitious artworks, as he begins a search for the next generation of creatives............In today's opener, a shortlist of applicants bring their work to a London warehouse for scrutiny by the panel – artist Tracey Emin, critic and broadcaster Matthew Collings, art collector Frank Cohen and Barbican curator Kate Bush. They are confronted by an array of bizarre and wondrous work that constitutes contemporary art today

Demonstrations / guides

• Jana Bouc (Jana's Journal & Sketchblog) has a great three part demonstration on her blog of a painting she is doing for a book. It's so nice to see a LONG explanation of what she is doing and lots of photos of how the painting progresses. I hope that's how it gets treated in the book too. I've highlighted books Jana has contributed to on this blog in the past and it looks like there's another one in the pipeline - it's called “Must Paint Watercolor Flowers” (Quarto Publishers, London)
  

detail of the painting of "Sunny Serenade" by Jana Bouc
watercolor, 15.5"x10.5"
copyright the artist

• Painting for the book: “Must Paint Watercolor Flowers” – Part I
• Painting for the book: “Must Paint Watercolor Flowers” – Part II
• Painting for the book: Part III ~ Finale

Step by Step - cats's eye demo by Gayle Mason

• Gayle Mason (Fur in the Paint) provides an excellent Demonstration - How to Draw a Cat's Eye (there's a link to purchase it in the right column of her blog). This is the demonstration which sold out at the UKCPS stand at the Art Materials Live event at the NEC recently. You can read about this on UKCPS News - UKCPS at Art Materials Live which also provides a link to other guides produced by UKCPS members
  

Classes

• The Princes Drawing School has published its Spring Term course publication - and has also set up a dedicated website for the part of the school which operates out of the Kensington Palace Studios
  

Art Exhibitions

Exhibitions involving artist bloggers

• Belinda del Pesco (Belinda Del Pesco Fine Art Blog) is at the ArtFest of Scottsdale Nov 21 & 22

Don't forget to contact me if you want your blog post about your exhibition highlighted here.

Exhibitions elsewhere

• In New York, I'd not noticed that the Metropolitan Museum has what looks as if it's a very interesting exhibition American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915 which also had its own dedicated blog. I love the way the exhibition images change fast as you go through the links to the different sections of the exhibition. I'd really like to see an artist index with hyperlinks though.
• Two major exhibitions in London - with a competitive entry - occupied my blog posts this week
  

• Exhibition review: Toby Wiggins wins Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2009
• An Interview with Toby Wiggins RP
• Exhibition Review - ING Discerning Eye 2009
  

• Susan Angharad Williams, one of the past winners of the ING Discerning Eye Award, had an exhibition of New Paintings and Drawings (19 November- 5 December 2009) open this week at the Jonathan Cooper Park Walk Gallery. Click here to view the exhibition
  

Art Societies

• I've created a new resource - Art Societies in the UK - Resources for Artists. Do let me know if you'd like your art society listed - I've had some people write to me already with ones I didn't know about.
  

Art Supplies

• Making A Mark Reviews - Opinion Poll: Which is your favourite make of artist grade coloured pencil? which announces my decision to make this an annual review poll of different coloured pencil brands from January 2010 which will enable me to monitor changes in the marketplace
  

Book reviews

• This is the New York Times' Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2009
• My resource site The Best Books about Drawing and Sketching was awarded a 'purple star' by Squidoo last week
• I've now got my copy of Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist by James Gurney and it's my current bedtime reading and it's has me riveted from the off!. This week however sees one of the reviews of the book which I was looking forward to reading. Charlie Parker over at Lines and Colors posted his book review of Imaginative Realism. Definitely a recommended read - my review won't be nearly as good! I loved the way his review reflects on the context for the production of art instruction books.
  

Rarest of all, there are art instruction books that are born out of the artist’s sheer enthusiasm for what they have learned and the desire to share it with any who are inclined to benefit from that knowledge. Imaginative Realism is one of those rare gems.............I also haven’t seen many art instruction books as information dense as this one. Not that the book feels visually cramped in any way, the book design is clear and elegant, but every one of its 200+ pages can be mined for nuggets of art technique gold.

• Postcard from Provence - the book is being published in Spring 2010. Julian Merrow Smith and his wife Ruth have been very busy this week advertisng and responding to a very special pre-order opportunity for his mailing list of his new book. This has raised the capital sum required for the printing costs and indicates this is going to be a pretty popular book. As many of you will know I've been following Julian since I started blogging and am a huge fan. I passed on the subscription offer but will certainly be buying the book. The standard edition is going to be available to pre-order next week in time for Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving - which is when the serious shopping for Christmas really starts. One has to admire the timing! ;) Julian's plan is to offer a stocking filler card so that people can gift a copy and offer a discount or free shipping for all books pre-ordered before a certain date. The book will have a softcover holding 160 pages and 140 full colour plates (which I'm guessing are probably going to be mainly 'life-size'). Price likely to be very affordable.
  

Opinion Polls

• Lots more people have responded to this month's opinion poll (in the right hand column). Have you answered the question yet - What makes a good art teacher?

Social Media, websites, blogging and webware

• I am really enjoying my Google search widget and now have it installed on all my blogs. It makes searching through the archives so find a past post so much faster and so much easier! I also get to search anybody I link to as well which makes it good for you too! I totally recommend it - see Widget reviews - Google Search on Blogger on Making A Mark reviews.....
  
• Tim O'Reilly (Radar Oreilly) writes that it looks like the The War For the Web is in the offing - it should make life interesting and I can't help thinking it might also create a lot of extra work in trying to keep up.
  
• Twitter premium accounts for business users due by end of the year - says the Guardian and Stone makes an interesting point.
  

"When we look at where we can grow we look to the more than four billion active mobile phone accounts in the world, opposed to the 1.65 million active web accounts."

• If it's the way to go for the BBC (see BBC bows to SEO) it's the way to go for you too when thinking of titles for blog posts!
• From ReadWriteWeb:
• Gmail Users Better-Connected, More Likely to Tweet than Members of other Webmail Services - have you ever thought about differentiating your mailing lists by what types of email they use?
  
• There's a new trend towards "giving the trolls what they deserve" and some people are even going to court - see Leaving a Vulgar Comment Online Might Cost You Your Job
• for those worried about their nerd like tendencies and the amount of time they spend in front of their computer - there's more on the notion that Social Media is Actually Social. Which nicely links back to Sarah's post at the top of the art blogs section in this post.

and finally............

I'm hoping that one of my favourite art suppliers hasn't been flooded in the "once in a millenium" rainstorms and floods in Cumbria (the Lake District) last week - 314.4mm (12.3in) of rain for a 24-hour period were recorded at Seathwaite Farm in Borrowdale.

Heaton Cooper is in Grasmere (in the next valley east of Borrowdale) and I viewed a BBC video of a car driving down the road to Grasmere into a flood caused by waterfalls coming over the top of the stone walls! The message on their website is that they hope to be back to normal after the weekend.

This is a link to photos of the floods in Cumbria