The return of the visitor map!

I've been using counters for visits and pageviews for the last 20 years. I like quick information - but I also want indepth information.

A Quick Look - on the blog

For many years, I have used clustrmaps.com to provide a visual map in my side column of where visitors to my blog come from.

I've always been completely amazed that I can sit typing at home in East London and the words that get published on my blog get read by people living all over the world - literally on every continent (bar Antarctica).

However, very sadly Clustrmaps has died.

Hence I was very pleased today to find a product which seeks to replicate it. Indeed I think it might even be the same team with a different name as they seem to have the same ethos - which is one I like and very much approve of.

Map My Visitors was created by a small team — just three guys working together. We are passionate about making web analytics accessible to everyone. We understand that tracking website traffic is essential for businesses, bloggers, and individuals, but the cost and complexity of existing solutions can be extremely overwhelming. That's why we set out on a mission to create a hit counter service that is not only accurate, fast, and responsive but also user-friendly and affordable.

You can find out more about them and what they do here.

Introducing MapMyVistors

MapMyVisitors

MapMyVisitors has a real time visitor map widget - and produces 

• either a map of where all your visitors come from (unless they are blocking their location)
• or a Globe widget (which moves!) I'm not a fan of things which move!

Visitors are either a red dot ie past visitors) or an amber or green dot ie visited recently

You can see the map near the top of the right hand side column.

Today - with just a few hours of stats on it, it looks like this

ON MY BLOG - as a widget

MapMyVisitors Widget
This is an enlarged version of the widget in the side column
after a few hours (i.e. installed on 19th August)

ON MY DASHBOARD

MapMyVisitors: This is the map on my screen re the dashboard.
Below it lists all the various locations

Statcounter

I cannot remember when I first started using Statcounter - but my stats suggest it must have been nearly 20 years ago.

I also use Statcounter to provide an incredibly detailed map - which allows me to drill down to region and city and ISP - and allowed me to identify I was being absolutely hammered by visits from people in South East Asia earlier this year when my stats went totally wild for two weeks.

This is today's map for the last 7 days

Statcounter: Visitor Map for the last 7 days
- with lots of the countries labelled

HOWEVER they don't have a nice widget sized one for my blog which I can look at really easily - hence my use of MapMyVisitors

What I liked at the Society of Women Artists 165th Annual Exhibition

I was mentally sending good wishes to the Society of Women Artists who had their 165th Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries last week. That was because last week was ridiculously hot weather wise in London (c.35°C / 95°F) for most of the week)!

Anybody who went would have actually enjoyed a very pleasant air conditioned gallery - with refreshments on tap!

However I was busy with other prebooked / prior commitments for the first half of the week. 

Then my brain started to fry because my 18" thick brick walled home had heated up! I was struggling to keep the temperature inside below 30°C - while my brain fried.... despite having all the windows closed and all the blinds down!

The incentive to go out - where it was even hotter - was minimal!

Which is by way of explanation as to why no visit on Tuesday and why no review.

I am eventually going to work out who painted this....

However, I did get there on Saturday afternoon, when it was a few degrees cooler, and managed to photograph the artwork in all the Galleries just before it closed.

Interestingly one comment I saw about the exhibition online was "better than the RA Summer Exhibition" and - having visited that particular exhibition with my sister (who was over from Australia) on Tuesday - I can confirm that comment was very far from fanciful in nature.

You can see my albums of photos of the exhibition on my Making A Mark Facebook Page

• West Gallery
• East Gallery 
• North Gallery

10 things I liked about the SWA Annual Exhibition 2026

• I thought a lot of the art was very much better than a lot of the open entries and some of the RA artwork in the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. Below was one of the standout pieces. 
• What I noticed in particular was there was a very strong entry by the open artists. You really need to raise your game to get selected nowadays!

"Suffer the little children" by Penny Hardy
(mild steel)
who uses her sculpture to raise money for UNICEF

• The hang was excellent - and one of the best I've seen in the Mall Galleries this year so far. Parts of the hang were definitely superior. It came across as very considered. 

The Pileon = Facebook Comments now restricted to Followers

This is about a change of policy for Comments on my Making A Mark Facebook Page. It's also a reminder about what is and is not OK when commenting on my Facebook posts.

Last night at 6pm I published my review of the Commission episode called "The Winner's Programme"  at the end of the current series of Landscape Artist of the Year.

Before I went to bed last night, I had to add a comment to the post because of the incessant negative comments on my review made by people who, it appeared to me had:

• neither watched the programme
• nor read my review
• nor explained the reasons for their negativity.

I remember names. I know when people have commented before. Having written on social media for the last 20 years, I also know when people have no interest in art and/or are just trolling.

In short, my post was experiencing "a pileon" and I was starting my response....

This is the comment on my Facebook Post about the Commission

It then occurred to me, I'd also received more ignorant comments than usual on my review of the Final Kim Day wins Landscape Artist of Year 2026 as well.....

What is a "pileon"?

I checked out definitions for Pileons on Google. It's not a recognised word in the Oxford English Dictionary. I'm not even sure I'm spelling it right however Google AI recognised the colloquial term and was able to provide some informative context.

20 years of Making A Mark

Making A Mark has now been published for 20 years. 

I meant to highlight the big birthday at the beginning of January - and then forgot!  I think I'm one of a very few art bloggers left from the art blogging explosion of c.20 years ago. (I must do a blog post about who's left!)

I was three months into early retirement in January 2006 when I started this blog as a way of recording what I was trying to do in terms of getting back to my art after a fairly intensive career in government and management consultancy which hadn't left a lot of time for anything else. (If you want to know more about me, try this page!)

I trialled it in December and then went public at the beginning of January.

What it turned into over time was a platform with a very strong emphasis on trying to help other artists with their own art and an educational slant. 

If you are a regular reader I hope you've had some benefit.

Incidentally, there's been a few side effects 

• I now know an absolutely phenomenal number of artists from across the UK - and across the world.  As you can see from the stats below I have a very global following. 
• Some I only know online. Many I have actually met. Unfortunately, I've got to that age where I know the face if I've met you before but the name only comes along about two minutes later! 
• One of the very weird side effects of all this is that complete strangers now come up to me in the middle of central London and say "You're Making A Mark!!". The first time it happened I was crossing Trafalgar Square!

What follows are 

• some edited highlights about how the blog progressed in the last 20 years - and
• what Google AI has to say about it. (That was really interesting!)
• I also added in some PICS and links to the latter so you can get a flavour of what the archives hold

Plus here are some stats:

• there are now 4,720 published blog posts!  That's an average of 236 blog posts a year or an average of 0.65 blog posts a day for the whole 20 years!
• nearly 27 MILLION pageviews - which averages out at more than a 1 million pageviews a year
• over 6.5 MILLION visitors - a lot of you kept coming back for some reason!
• Plus this blog has been no 1 on Google for the words "Making A Mark" for very many years

Making A Mark Statistics as at 31st January 2026

 

2006-2011

The first 5 years were spent 

• writing a blog post every single day - I kid you not. Check out the numbers on the months on the blog archive in the right hand columns
• doing major projects each year - and then blogging about them
• starting and then developing "Who's made a mark this week?" which highlighted the activities of other artists which generated a lot of engagement and followers - but fell by the wayside when others switched to instagram and stopped long form blogging
• writing about major exhibitions and art competitions n London. I'd worked out how to get into the press views because my blog was doing so well

By January 2011 I wrote Making A Mark achieves #2 in Top Ten Blogs of 2010!

This is what Google AI had to say about 2010

Based on the archives of the Making A Mark blog, the most significant and engaging content in 2010 revolved around the annual art blog awards and in-depth reviews of art books, particularly regarding colored pencils and watercolours. 

• Top 10 Art Books Series (2010): Katherine Tyrrell's specialized posts, such as "Top Ten Art Books in October," were major, highly interactive, and resource-heavy posts for the blog.
• Making A Mark Awards 2010: A major, popular series at the end of the year included the nomination and voting posts, such as "Nominate the Best Art (Place/Landscape) on a Blog in 2010" and "Best Picture of 2010 on an Art Blog".
• Art Competition Coverage: Throughout 2010, posts analyzing major competitions, such as the BP Portrait Award 2010 (noting a record number of entries), were highly read; specifically "BP Portrait Award 2010 - Shortlist announced," was also a significant, high-traffic topic in April 2010
• In 2010, the Making A Mark blog was recognized for its high-quality, research-based content, achieving the #2 spot in top ten art blogs.

This is the link to my Best Books label - for those who like reading about art books. 

Making A Mark Awards 2010: Here's what happened at the end of the Year

• Best Picture of 2010 on an Art Blog
• The Making A Mark Awards (Part 4 - The Home Front)
• The Making A Mark Awards 2010 (Part 3 - Generating Art)
• The Making A Mark Awards 2010 (Part 2 - Learning about Art and the Art Business)
• The Making A Mark Awards 2010 (Part 1 - Getting Out of the Studio)

2011-2015

Review: Episode 6 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2025 (Series 12)

We've reached Episode 6 of Series 12 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2025. I'm beginning to wonder how many more to go - but I do know there is another heat next week as I know who the sitters are (at the end).

This review follows the normal order of my reviews - with one significant deviation for the person and the paintings that nearly all the public think should have won.

The other major deviation is that there is no pic of all the artists lined up and looking to their right to the Judges because - for the first time in a very long time - there was none in the programme. 

Here they are - with no faces - from the other angle! (Note to Director: we ALL like to see their faces in the normal line up shot! What happened?)

The artists line up in front of their self portraits for the shortlisting announcement.

Episode 6: The Sitters

Sitters in Episode 6
Beth Rigby (top right) Gabby Logan (bottom left) and Shane Lynch (bottom right)

The three sitters in the first episode are as follows:

• Beth Rigby - Journalist and Political Editor for Sky News and co-host of the podcast Electoral Dysfunction (which I listen to a lot). She had brought a pen which jer brother gave her and a small notepad of the sort journalists use. (You can also watch it on YouTube)

Rigby is known for "her trademark dark bob and red lipstick, her distinctive diction and her persistent questioning of senior politicians" Wikipedia

• Gabby Logan - a Welsh television and radio sports presenter, and a former rhythmic gymnast who represented Wales and Great Britain. Her special item was her 50th birthday present - a black standard poodle called Maverick.
• Shane Lynch - an Irish singer, best known as a member of Boyzone.  He's also well known for his tattoos and piercings. Latterly he has pursued his interest in racing cars which he has done for 30 years and has appeared in various television programmes. He brought one of his helmets

Episode 6: The Artists

The Artists in Episode 6 after they had finished and been banished to the outside
so the artists can judge and they can get their photo taken together

All the artists are listed below alphabetically by surname - but are not differentiated between professional and amateur. The link to their main 'contact' site is embedded in their name and social media sites follow - if available.

As always I've dug around online, and these profiles provide more information than the programme does.

The mini bio provided in the programme skips over some rather important information about some of the participating artists.

• Emma Alexandra (Instagram) - a contemporary artist who works in a variety of mediums from Aotearoa New Zealand. The last few years she has been living between Italy and UK. She now lives in Bath.
• Laura Cronin (Instagram) - full time professional portrait artist who was born and brought up in Dublin. Studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. When she returned to Ireland, she initially worked as an illustrator and did regular drawings and paintings for the two national newspapers- weekly portraits for The Irish Times and court drawings for The Independent. She has had a number of successful solo shows in Ireland and London - and her first in Dublin sold out. She is married with two daughters and a son.
• Thalia Elliot - From Sunderland. Currently studying Fine Art and Textiles at Newcastle University.  (If you know Thalia and she has sites please get her to tell me about them!)
• John Matta (Instagram) - a motion graphics designer and musician located in Suffolk. He is also an artist inspired by the timeless beauty and craftsmanship of the Old Masters.
• Robert McLeod (Instagram) - Currently a third year student studying for a degree in fine art at Salford School of Arts, Media and Creative Technology where he has been winning prizes two years in a row! His university also featured him on their website.
• Lizzie Patterson (Instagram) - She describes herself as a creative who works across the mediums of art and photography. As a contemporary figurative artist, she creates large-scale, life-size portraits that celebrate colour, character, and connection. She is based near Guildford in Surrey.
• Rick Roberts (Instagram) - a painter and decorator from Ashton Under Lyme. He has worked as a life model and as an art technician.
• Ash Tyson (Instagram) - She lives and works in London as an illustrator and a tattoo artist (for 10 years). She has a love hate relationship with the biro she uses for drawing.
• Uthman Wahab (Instagram) - born in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria in 1983 and grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. He holds a higher diploma degree in Fine Art from the School of Art, Design and Printing, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos. He is a multidisciplinary artist, who lives and work between Lagos Nigeria and Kent in the UK. He has an overarching interest in social phenomenon; yet, he is not concerned with a consistent use of medium or even singular aesthetic style. His work seeks to challenge perceptions and foster dialogue around issues of faith, tradition, and community, particularly within the context of African and Islamic identities. (His about page is more comprehensive and impressive than those of most artists)
  

Winding down for summer - and what I've been up to

You may have noticed I'm posting less.  This is why and what else I've been doing.

It's very much a response to 

• a remarkable run of good weather - and a marked preference for being out and about and visiting places we love (mainly gardens!) rather than indoors writing!
• an extremely busy time between May and now with various important exhibitions that I love and meeting up with lots and lots of artists I tend to only see once a year
• getting older - as very busy times - with lots of photography and lots of writing - leave me rather more tired than I'd like
• a need sometimes to take "a breather" - time out from a regular routine for more "head space"

Plus as the school holidays come along, you all disappear on your holidays! So fewer people reading and responding (via Facebook to what I post).

So this is by way of saying I'm going to continue to post through August - but it will continue to be infrequent - before September revs back into action!

Anyway, here's a few photos of what I've been getting up to since May

I've also uploaded a phenomenal amount of photos I've been taking in exhibitions to albums on my Facebook Pages since May. - see Making A Mark (FB) and Botanical Art and Artists (FB)

With three of my fellow Judges of the SBA Fellow Art Grant Award
at the Society of Botanical Art (SBA) Annual Exhibition Plantae 2025
at a special PV on 27 May

This week, I've been drafting revised guidelines and application form - for review - for the next SBA Fellow Art Grant Award which opens for applications in September - when, as Head Judge, I give an online talk about it. Which I've yet to write!

With Sarah Gardner SBAF - and her painting which was a joint winner of
the CPGFS Botanical Art Award - at the PV for Plantae 2025

August is also my month off from being Treasurer of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society!

The Society of Botanical Artists' 40th Anniversary exhibition Plantae 2025 is probably the biggest and best botanical art exhibition by an art society that I have seen in years.

See 

Portrait Award 2025 (Part 1) What's changed and what's not

This is my review of the HSFK Portrait Award 2025 Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery - sponsored by Herbert Smith Freehill Kramer - and its Awards Ceremony.

The view as you enter The Portrait Award Exhibition

It covers:

• how you can see the Portrait Award Exhibition - in person or online
• what's changed, what's not and what needs to!
• what I like - and what I'm less enthusiastic about

At the end are notes about

• Why I write about the Portrait Award - a short note about my personal history with this exhibition 
• followed by all the blog posts I've written about it in the last 18 years - since 2007! ( I haven't counted - but it's a lot!)

My next two posts are:

• Portrait Award 2025 (Part 2): Artists with their Paintings - which I know is much appreciated (hopefully on Sunday) and    
• Portrait Award 2025 (Part 3): "My 10 best portrait paintings in the 2025 exhibition - after I've been back to the exhibition and seen it again (probably next week) and studied the paintings in more depth. If I have time I'll also be adding in more analysis as I've done in the past around:

• size, format and colour
• type of model
• type of portrait

How to see the Portrait Award Exhibition

The Portrait Award Exhibition can be seen 

• in Gallery 2 (the very far end of the second floor)
• at the National Portrait Gallery in London
• from 10th July (today) until 12th October 2025.

The exhibition then travels to 

• the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle.
• from 28 March – 5 September 2026

You can also see it online in the Visitor's Choice Section where you can also vote for your favourite portrait.

How the numbers have changed

First of all - an important observation which may have escaped some people.

In the last 10 years, the number of entries and artists and portraits hung seem to keep on reducing.

• the number of entries have halved 
• the number of countries sending entries has reduced by a third.
• the number of artists selected have reduced from 55 to 46

Bottom line: The number of portraits now hung is a lot less than it used to be. 

Everytime the NPG reduces the numbers hung I'm very much of the view that this makes it less likely that those entering will get hung - and at some point they start asking "what's the point?". 

Around 50-55 was the norm for a very long time. This year it is just 46 paintings.  

Is it a less prestigious competition and exhibition? What's the rationale for cutting numbers?

Compare how the numbers have dropped

• 2025: Those hung this year were selected from 1,314 entries from 61 countries.

This compares to (reaching for my past blog posts and annual analysis)

• 2012: 2,187 entries received from artists in 74 different countries
• 2013: 1,969 entries from 77 different countries
• 2015: 2,748 entries from artists in 92 countries

I suggest somebody has a very long hard think about the target number of artworks to be hung if they want to retain the prestige of this competition.

Review of the Exhibition

I'm finding as I get older that the effort invested in 2 x 2 hours on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning - plus associated social media posting (eg write a blog post between getting up at 6am on Wednesday and shooting out the door to get to the press preview by 10am) leaves me a lot more tired now that I'm 70 than it did when I was in my 50s. 

The process is identical - get round as many of the 40+ artists present, take their photos, hear their story and learn about their painting - but the effort and concentration involved tends to leave me feeling slightly "wired" - as if I'd had rather a lot of coffees! Then on the third day, I end up feeling tired - which is today!

Which makes it quite interesting trying to work out what the story is re this exhibition - beyond the story of the numbers.

Moira Cameron wins the £35K HSF Kramer Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery

Moira Cameron (right) - Winner of the HSF Kramer Portrait Award
by Victoria Siddall, the new President of the National Portrait Gallery.

Four awards with a value of £66,000 were announced last night at the Awards Ceremony for the HSF Kramer Portrait Award 2025 at the National Gallery. 

The prize winners were as follows:

• First Prize £35,000: Moira Cameron for A Life Lived (Oil on canvas 2200 x 200mm)
• Second Prize £12,000: Tim Benson PPROI for Cliff, Outreach Worker (Oil on canvas, 1520 x 1220mm)
• Third Prize £10,000: Martyn Harris for Memories (Oil on board 400mm x 400mm)
• Young Artist Award £9,000: Michelle Liu for Kofi (Oil on canvas, 500 x 400mm)

Tim Benson receiving his award from Victoria Siddall

Below are the profiles of the artists and the portraits which won the prizes Words about the painting and what the Judges thought are from the press release - hence quotes.

First Prize Winner (£35,000) Moira Cameron

Selected Artists for Portrait Award 2025 at the National Portrait Gallery

46 portraits have been selected for the HSFK Portrait Award 2025 at the National Portrait Gallery. Want to see some of them before the exhibition opens? READ ON!

Those selected for inclusion in the exhibition were chosen from 1,314 submissions entered by artists from 60 countries.   

For me, it just goes to show how changing the people doing the selection changes the focus and the preferences of those judging. Many of the names I'm used to seeing on a fairly regular basis have not been selected - although some have. 

Those that are here again are very good. However, I think it might be the lowest number of previous exhibitors for some time.

We'll have to wait until the exhibition to see whether the choices made make for a better exhibition than usual - or otherwise!

The Portrait Award exhibition is at the National Portrait Gallery in London from 10 July - 12 October 2025. It used to travel but I think that has stopped with the change in sponsor.

I do this preview of who gets selected to help those who will be applying next year.

• the link in their name is to their website
• plus I include their Instagram account where identifiable
• I embed Instagram posts of their artwork where possible.

It follows on my post Shortlist for the £66K HSFK Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery - and I have not repeated information about the artists shortlisted for prizes in this post.

 

I've been reviewing this exhibition on Making A Mark since 2006 and I'll be at the Awards Ceremony in July. I'll also be publishing a review of the exhibition and pics of artists with their paintings. For all those artists who want a pic with their painting in this blog, make sure you find me on at the press review the following morning!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Artists who describe themselves as "shortlisted" for this exhibition - but who are not listed in my previous post are deceiving themselves and others. It makes you look amateurish. The only artists "shortlisted" are those who will win a prize. Everybody else is SELECTED.

Selected Artists Portrait Award 2025

Images being used to advertise the Portrait Award Exhibition
- which is a prize in itself!

The selected artists exhibiting in THE Portrait Award are, in alphabetical order:

Making A Mark is 19 years old today!

 Making A Mark was born in December 2005 but first went public on January 7th 2006

Which makes it 19 years old today. 

The actual first post Making a Mark said

This is a new journal which will reflect on how my paintings and drawings are created.

It will also introduce small works of art which will be available for sale from my website from the New Year.

That was the idea at the time - but was soon revised! I subsequently decided it was probably a better idea to learn more about art - and my Making A Mark blog started to transform.

In December 2005, I started learning how to use Blogger (in private!) and so, that first post was followed in December, by a few which became much more typical of what I used to post at the beginning.

• Two of my favourite occupations
• Drinking Tea and Drawing People
• Drawing and Flu

Drinking tea and drawing people - in the RA Friends Room
(Who remembers the big black chesterfield sofas?)
drinking tea and drawing people became a perennial theme for sketches
- which subsequently transferred to another blog
Travels with my Sketchbook in....

Drinking tea and drawing people at the RI Exhibition at the Mall Galleries (2010)

on Travels with a Sketchbook in....

This sketch subsequently appeared on page 103 of my book Sketching 365
I can even remember that those blue paintings on the back wall
were by Bob Rudd
Sadly this blog was knobbled by my growing mobility issues

However, in terms of birthdays, I always count the day it first went public as it's actual birthday. Making A Mark went public to the world at large after I'd recovered from flu and got through Christmas 2005.   

So the actual FIRST PUBLIC POST was Catnapping on January 5th 2006.

Catnapping #2
Cosmo sleeping on the lap of JR (he loved his Daddy!)

I've been pondering about whether I've opted for the right blogger software and whether, if I need to change, I need to do it sooner rather than later. But every time I look at all the alternatives I get a headache. And as the flu bug has only diminished rather than disappeared I think I'll leave that for when I'm feeling a bit more invigorated and generally up for a bit of cyber thingummies. Especially as I've just managed to lose all my refinements of the basic template because I fancied looking at what it looked like in blue! Grrrrrrr!!

What I now value very much is I have a complete record of a lot of my life over the last 19 years - where I've been, what I've seen, who I've met and all the art along the way. If I get bored or cannot get out I just start to look through my archives in the side column - year by year and month by month. 

In the lead up to Making A Mark's 20th birthday, I think I might start regular reminders of posts from the past - because they're useful or a visual feast.

Then there's all my photographs of art and exhibitions........

Making A Mark on Art: Musings on a move to Substack

While on my "Mega Spring Clean" Break, I've been mulling over whether to move forward with Substack.

Mainly in the context of the fact 

• I've been writing Making A Mark on Blogger for over 18 years. I happen to like the platform and while I hope it continues, I do get concerned about the subscription side of things - which has effectively died for me
• I've watched both James Gurney and Michael Chesley Johnson set up on Substack (and I'm happy to hear of any more of you who have made the move!) - I think for pretty much the same reasons as me.
• I'm 70 later this year and I'd like to 
• find a way to still write 
• AND also be retired 
• AND be able to find the time to do things I enjoy doing. 
• you'll have noticed I now write fewer posts than I used to (and post more topical links on my Making A Mark Facebook Page
• Plus I absolutely MUST put time and effort into staying healthy in the context of 
• joints which are progressively succumbing to severe osteoarthritis 
• which means a BIG chunk of every day is now dedicated to my daily walk - to avoid grinding to a complete halt as a completely stiff person 
• AND I'm about to remind the hospital they promised me a shoulder replacement.

So overall, something along the lines of "less is more"!

This morning, I decided I'd better get on with making a claim to my brand name. 

Which is when I found some geek got there first! However I've been using Making A Mark on Art for a while so I've gone with that.

So the URL for my substack is https://makingamarkonart.substack.com/

I'm thinking maybe using my Substack for "perennial" topics

• long form discussion posts
• possibly trying out some posts about a subject I have in mind to write a book about and where I'd like to have a conversation with people about it as I go
• ways of enabling access to the masses of very detailed stuff I've written in the last 18 years which needs "a front door"
• developing a community - which seems to have happened already on Facebook - although I've never made it into a group
• plus maybe periodic highlights of other substacks I've found interesting (remember when we used to have blog rolls - which is the main way I used to find people whose art and/or writing I liked?)

Which would mean 

• I am NOT CLOSING DOWN this blog
• Making A Mark will continue with more topical posts - things of the "here and now"
• e.g. regular art competition / art exhibition posts will stay on this blog 

Plus I will also cross reference between the two sites.

Let me know what you think via my Facebook Page and/or by following my new substack publication.

Here are the relevant URLs:

• Substack https://substack.com/home - where you can be 
• just be a reader and subscribe for free to any substack publications you like 
• and/or opt to have a paid subscription to those you think might be worthwhile (a bit like Patreon)
• Making A Mark on Art - on Substack https://makingamarkonart.substack.com/ - where you can SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE
• Substack interest areas - see below
• The top paid Art and Illustration Substacks https://substack.com/leaderboard/art/paid

The Semi-Finalists in Landscape Artist of the Year 2024

You, like me, have probably already forgotten the names and backgrounds of the artists who are going to be in the semi-final of Landscape Artist of the Year 2024 on Sky Arts.

Here's a round-up and refresher for all those who will be watching TONIGHT at 8pm.

For me, the critical question is WHO is going to make a serious pitch for the final and then the commission in this semifinal round. Read on to find out WHY....

ALL the artists are painters - except for Kristina who is really a printmaker.

At the end I discuss the reasons behind who I predict will be in the Final and where you can discuss my choice!

Heat 1: Kristina Chen

Kristina Chen (Instagram) is a Canadian printmaker who has studied in London. Her submission was a large monochrome work on very thin Japanese paper. Very little presence online when I looked for her after the first heat. However, I looked again and have now found her website which I couldn't find at the time of the first heat. She describes herself as 

a London based artist working between printmaking, photography and public installation.

It's also very clear from her 'about' page that she is very used to doing commissions for prestigious clients and public art installations. Nothing that vaguely resembles painting though...

Having seen her past achievements, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if she's in the Final - because I don't believe that the Judges never ever look at their CVs and websites!

 

However, her Instagram account is now private! Which seems odd for an artist who is trying to raise their profile via the media

Submission and Heat Painting by Kristina Chen

What I said

Kristina Chen rescued an impossible situation and benefited from the fact that both Kathleen and Tai liked the strange quality of her artwork. They do love seeing artwork they've not seen before!

I thought Kristina's submission was very impressive - and I identified her at the beginning, when we only had the submissions to go on, as being one of the shortlisted artists.

I also think it is infinitely superior to her heat artwork. However I have sympathy for the fact that what she had planned to do in the heat i.e. printmaking turned out to be impossible given the location. She was working on very light paper and it became obvious to her that working into the initial drawing / print using other media was the only way she could finish.

She captured the huge clefts in the cliff on which the castle sat and got a very real sense of the massive nature of the cliffs and the relatively small size of the castle. Plus she got the weather in the latter part of the day.

She wasn't my favourite, although I loved her submission. I said....

I'm not disappointed however I think her submission probably got her through. It will be really interesting to see:

• whether she works out how to do printmaking outside
• what she produces in the semi-finals

REFERENCE: Review: Episode 1 of Landscape Artist of the Year Series 9 (2024) 

Heat 2: Wesley Smith

I didn't like Wesley's heat painting, however I loved his submission

Wesley Smith (Instagram) is a chef and a painter based in Brighton’s North Laines where he paints landscapes and still lives. He spent 10 years living abroad in Taiwan and his paintings are influenced by Asia. His Instagram account is definitely worth a review - I'm more impressed by the paintings on there which demonstrates very clearly that he can paint a range of landscapes.

A short break (except for LAOTY)

I'm currently feeling absolutely inundated with a very long "to do" list of tasks which have been on the back burner for far too long

So, consequently, I'm taking a short break from "Making A Mark" - EXCEPT for my weekly reviews of Landscape Artist of the Year which will still appear each week.

You never know by the time I come back I may have sorted out the email subscription issue!

ALERT ALL SUBSCRIBERS: Blogging Service may be interrupted OR subscription mailing service changed

This is by way of an alert to all those used to receiving my latest blog post via Mailerlite

I was supposed to have written a review of an exhibition by now - but having completed by tax return (have you remembered?), I'm currently tearing my hair out over another issue - and will soon be bald. 

Right now I'm thinking of giving up blogging!! It's all because of new rules which come in on 1st February for bulk emails being sent to gmail.

I'm caught in a really difficult situation with:

• Google and Yahoo have changed the rules on which emails it will accept for  newsletter emails (for good reasons - it's to reduce the spam on their platforms). This includes blogs if your RSS to email service provides scope for you to use a personalised email address - which mine does. 
• All "commercial emails" in future must come from an authenticated custom domain
• which is not helpful when you're trying to distribute an email to a subscriber base for a Google blogspot.domain using a gmail address
• I've always stuck with gmail as it's caused me very few problems.
• plus I'm not commercial - everything I write is for free consumption!!!
• PLUS The Mailerlite deadline for the movement to a new Mailerlite software base (i.e. everything needs to be complete by 31st January)
• plus it also requires compliance with the new Google rules - because the platform uses personalised email addresses
• Everything is compounded by having far too many subscribers (for the two sites this affects) to switch to alternative sites without it costing me an absolute arm and a leg - which given this blog generates no income is a problem!

At the moment, I'm becoming more and more despondent because:

• I apparently need a domain oriented email address to send a subscription email from Mailerlite 
• but I've always used gmail and blogger - so I neither own the domain I currently use for Making A Mark nor do I have a domain email for it.

I do however have a domain name related to Making A Mark - and am currently looking at options on Namecheap (my domain registrar)

Mailerlite is also saying 

Important: According to requirements from Google and Yahoo, the use of public domains (such as Gmail) as a sender address will no longer be permitted from February, 2024. Please switch to a custom domain.

The thing is the Google requirements are complete gobblydygook (see below) - with no idiots guide

Requirements for all senders

Starting February 1, 2024, all senders who send email to Gmail accounts must meet the requirements in this section.

Important: If you send more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail accounts, follow the Requirements for sending 5,000 or more messages per day.

• Set up SPF or DKIM email authentication for your domain.
• Ensure that sending domains or IPs have valid forward and reverse DNS records, also referred to as PTR records. Learn more
• Use a TLS connection for transmitting email. For steps to set up TLS in Google Workspace, visit Require a secure connection for email.
• Keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and avoid ever reaching a spam rate of 0.30% or higher. Learn more about spam rates.
• Format messages according to the Internet Message Format standard (RFC 5322).
• Don’t impersonate Gmail From: headers. Gmail will begin using a DMARC quarantine enforcement policy, and impersonating Gmail From: headers might impact your email delivery.
• If you regularly forward email, including using mailing lists or inbound gateways, add ARC headers to outgoing email. ARC headers indicate the message was forwarded and identify you as the forwarder. Mailing list senders should also add a List-id: header, which specifies the mailing list, to outgoing messages.

So unless I get this sorted - this might be the last blog post sent vis an RSS to email subsciption.

I'll have to go back to firing up Twitter/X as well as Facebook to announce new blog posts!

I'm currently contemplating switching all existing subscribers to follow-it - because despite their awful advertising they do do a good job of getting emails out promptly. Plus they do NOT use personalised emails. 

Or maybe changing platforms completely and making it subscription based (i.e. I can pay for the subscription email service by you paying me to receive the emails!)

For example Substack offers:

• emails from (name)@substack.com
• paid subscriptions for some content

That's the last resort.

Right now it's just very, very depressing.

Making A Mark is 18 years old!

Making A Mark is now an adult - and 18 years old! ;)

I should have really done this on Friday which was this blog's 18th birthday in terms of "going public" - but I've been having a major clear out and chuck event - which will continue this week aka "no tubes running all week and it's freezing as well" 

What happened in 2023

Making A Mark continues to have followers all over the world - mainly but not exclusively from people in English speaking countries

This is the map of where visits came from in the last year.

In 2023, this blog had 

• c.250k visitors for what I think was an average of just under 3 blog posts a week
• 1,159,103 pageviews according to Blogger during the last 12 months - which is just under 100k pageviews a month.

Not bad going for somebody who is semi-retired - at least from daily blogging!

Making A Mark at 18

What's happening in 2024

The main event in 2024 is that I will hit my 70th birthday.

I started to wind down from daily posting back when I was 65. As age and the osteoarthritis progresses, I've become ever more conscious of needing to spend time 

• keeping me mobile - hence a lengthy walk every day, which is the only time I feel like I used to when I was younger. Notwithstanding I can barely move in the evening after sitting down for too long.....
• being able to do things while I'm still around  
• being able to do things with my partner is still around - in sound body and mind

So I won't be looking to increase what continues to feel like a diminished rate of posting for somebody who blogged on a daily basis for years.

What I will be doing is endeavouring to introduce people to more of my archive of 4,469 posts about art since January 2006. 

• Especially as a number of them were on thematic subjects and posted over a period of time. For example, back in 2007, I was starting my Van Gogh Project - see Introduction to the Van Gogh Project
• Plus highlighting some blog posts from the same month in previous years. Such as 
• Skating and sketching in London (2007)
• Holbein in England - and at Tate Britain (2007)
• Plant Motifs and Art (#2) at the V&A (2007)

Plus continuing to post on things which interest me - particularly art society exhibitions / open competitions and popular art programmes on television.

But I am very gradually slowing down to make more time for me.....

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!