Monday, June 21, 2010

For Georgia O'Keeffe fans

Those who love the work of Georgia O'Keeffe might like to take a look at today's posts on two of my other blogs.  These are:
Buy at Art.com
Red Hills with Pedernal, 1936
Georgia O'Keeffe

Those of you who were not reading this blog back in June 2007 won't have seen the series of posts I did that month for my Georgia O'Keeffe project - see Making A Mark - The Georgia O'Keeffe Project.
I have a problem with posting her images in this blog. Basically since she's not been dead for 70 years her work is not copyright free and in the public domain. However her drawings and paintings of flowers are extremely popular which means that there are lots of images on the web which can be linked to - try googling Georgia O'Keeffe and you'll see what I mean!
These are also listed below:
Making a Mark: Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Macro Flowers
I adore flowers and images of flowers and enjoy the process of developing artwork based on a flower or flowers as much as looking at the end result. In developing my own work I've become increasingly drawn to the notion of exploring the flower through focusing on the structure of a single bloom. I now want to see how I can develop further and this is what this month will be all about. Naturally, in wanting to learn more about how best to do this, I've become very interested in the work of Georgia O'Keeffe - hence Georgia O'Keeffe month!
Making a Mark: Kew Gardens in June
I can highly recommend Kew Gardens in June. Yesterday it was full of flowers associated with Georgia O'Keeffe - arum lilies, poppies and irises. Kew also has a great glasshouse which has wonderful orchids which are another favourite O'Keeffe flower.
Making a Mark: Georgia O'Keeffe month: Two white irises (and three buds)
As you know I've been hunting down useful books for my Georgia O'Keeffe month. On Friday, I bought "Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections (Volume 2)" by Barbara Buhler Lynes at Kew Gardens. Having now had a chance to look through this book - which is the right way to describe a book which is mainly full page plates of colour images of her work - I've come to a few conclusions. These are offered here by way of guidance to anybody who wants to participate in the project this month.
Making a Mark: Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Cactus and quotations
I've included some quotations from Georgia O'Keeffe which I copied down when I visited the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe last year.
Making a Mark: Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Learning about Notan #1
I'm trying to get to grips with Notan - using "Composition" the book by Arthur Wesley Dow, first published in 1899, which was Georgia O'Keeffe's bible when she went through the same process.
Making a Mark: Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Learning about Notan #2
This post follows on from Learning about Notan #1. I thought I'd share something about what Dow has to say about Notan - the Japanese concept involving the placement of lights and darks next to the other to read as flat shapes on the two-dimensional surface - and harmony in two value designs and then how this can apply to compositions involving flowers.
Making a Mark: Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Learning about Notan #3
I've been finding it very difficult to reduce to just two value Notan. Although I understand the principles, it would appear my brain does not want to play!
Making a Mark: Georgia O'Keeffe month: "O'Keeffe" by Britta Benke
"O'Keeffe" by Britta Benke (subtitle Georgia O'Keeffe, 1887-1986, Flowers of the Desert) is a splendid and very informative book. It's also a complete bargain, being available for an amazing price whichever country you live in.
Plus
Travels with a Sketchbook in.......: 22nd July: Santa Fe and Georgia O'Keeffe

The Georgia O'Keeffe museum was stunning. I've felt an affinity with the work of Georgia O'Keeffe and her approach to art (her focus on landscapes, macro flowers and colour) for some time and have been keen to know how she achieves such deceptively simple images. I've been wanting to go to the museum for a very long time - on the basis that you can't beat seeing art 'up close and personal' as an aid to understanding art - and was not disappointed.


You may also be inteersted in my information website Georgia O'Keeffe - Resources for Art Lovers where you can find out about American artist Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986),
  • her life and her artwork; 
  • where her paintings are in museums and art galleries; 
  • online sites about her and her art; 
  • books and videos about her, 
  • her art and her home in New Mexico.
Posted by Making A Mark on Monday, June 21, 2010 2 comments
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Sunday, June 20, 2010

20th June 2010 - Who's made a mark this week?

Yesterday I wrote about Postcard from Provence - paintings by Julian Merrow-Smith in The very best painter of French cheese I know...  Today, I'm featuring another painting from the book because for me it sets a very high standard for books by art bloggers.  This painting was posted very nearly five years ago on Postcard from Provence.

Summer morning, Banon,
14th July 2005
20cm x 10cm, oil on card

Art Blogs and Websites


Drawing and sketching

Coloured Pencils and Pastels
Landscapes
Painters and Painting
  • Jeff Hayes has a painting in the July edition of American Art Collector - Article
  • Sarah Wimperis (The Red Shoes) is really hitting her stride with recent paintings about gardens. I love the facts she's painting tangles and nature in the raw rather than nice tidy manicured gardens.
Raspberry Canes
55 cm x 40 cm (21.7" x 15.7"); Pure Watercolour
copyright Sarah Wimperis
    Portraiture
    Printmaking
     "Runoff" - reduction linocut - 6" x 9"
    copyright Sherrie York
    Wildlife Art
    An aspiring ornithologist, she wrote to the Audubon Society, pointing out that she is a “decent drawer” and asking if it was possible to sell some of her bird images to help raise money for relief efforts.

    Art Business and Marketing

    Newsletters
    Estate Planning for Artists (Wills for Artists)
    • Tina Mammoser is on a quest to find a suitable will for artists to cover the handling of your artistic output on your death.  She's found one for authors.  It's a great idea - and one which I guess a lot of people duck!  Have any of you got any links which are useful which you'd like to share?

    Art and the Economy / Art Collectors

    Art Competitions and Art Societies

    • My post this week about the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize 2010: shortlist announced has proved to be VERY popular siunce I included as many links as I could find to the websites of the artists shortlisted for this major contempoarry painting prize - worth £25,000
    • The V&A Illustration Awards Display 2010 open on Tuesday and continue until 19 December 2010. The V&A Illustration Awards are held annually to highlight the best book and editorial illustration published in the UK in the previous year. Their aim is to encourage, recognise and celebrate high standards of creativity in the industry. The 2010 awards will be announced tomorrow.
    • The awards ceremony for the BP Portrait Award 2010 at the National Portrait Gallery is on Tuesday night; then there's a private view on Wedesnday before the exhibition opens to the public on the 24th June. 
    • The Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award shortlist - outstanding buildings across UK - includes 2 art musuems 

    Art Exhibitions, galleries and museums

    Major art galleries and museums
    Other galleries are said to be beside themselves with joy at the argument between the auction house and the small Haunch of Venison gallery in London.
    Art Bloggers - exhibitions
    Upcoming exhibitions include....
    I'll be doing another blog post looking forward to exhibitions in the next six months in the fortnight.

    Art fairs

    Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

    Art education - drawing research
    • Susan B. Roth, a drawing instructor at Ohio State University, created an experiment to research the potential cause(s) behind the most common drawing errors she was observing in her classroom - and ArtPlantaehas summarised the results in this blog post Investigating the Drawing Process
    Students must be taught how to view objects “as a collection of relationships between end points and other elements” instead of as a whole object.
    workshops

    Art History


    Art Studios



    Art Supplies


    Sketching toolkits

    Book reviews


    Websites, webware and blogging


    websites - art

    • My exercise to find the websites highlighted some progress in artists' websites which I recorded on Wednesday in The Websites of Contemporary Painters in the UK
    • The latest version of the V&A Search the Collections, was judged to Best of the Web in the research category at the international Museums and the Web conference in Denver in April 2010.

    internet - generic


    and finally........


    BBC iPlayer has The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2010: A Culture Show Special (HD version).  Robin in Tuscany (Have Dogs Will Travel) tells me she very much enjoyed watching it so maybe more people overseas should try and see if they can get it.
    Posted by Making A Mark on Sunday, June 20, 2010 4 comments
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    Saturday, June 19, 2010

    The very best painter of French cheese I know...

     My copy of Postcard from Provence - paintings by Julian Merrow Smith

    ...not to mention figs, peaches, plums and the changes in seasonal colours in the country lanes and Côtes du Ventoux vineyards of rural Provence.

    Chemin Tournant
    13cm x 16cm (Collection of Judith Kolata, Chicago)
    copyright Julian Merrow Smith

    For the last five years a Postcard from Provence from Julian Merrow Smith has popped up in my inbox on a regular basis.  It's a little less frequent than the daily postcard I used to receive at the beginning but it still perks up my day. 

    This week, instead of an email, my signed copy of Postcard from Provence - the book - arrived instead and it's simply luscious!  It includes many of my favourites such as Chemin Tournant.

    I'd normally review books on Making A Mark reviews but since Postcard from Provence has a special place in the life of this blog (see links at the end) I'm doing it over here instead!

    Julian's book is essentially a catalogue or picture book.  It takes the form of a notional year.  In making his choice of the 140 paintings to include in the book, Julian was able to draw on more than 1,300 paintings which he had completed since February 2005 when he started Postcard from Provence.

    The book also includes a six page interview with Julian by Michael Gitlitz, the current director of the Marlborough Gallery, New York which provides behind the scenes perspective on how he came to be a painter, being a painter in Provence and how the project has impacted on his life.

    I love the fact that virtually all the images of the postcard paintings are 'lifesize' giving one a much better feel of what it must actually feel like to receive an airmail package containing one of his paintings on acrylic primed cardboard.

    What I found interesting looking through the images chosen for the book was that it very much reminded me of the thoughts I'd had at the time I received the original emails.

    Still Life with Cantal Vieux, Knife and Glass of Wine
    20cm x 13cm (8"x5½"), oil on gessoed card
    • Julian can paint French cheese so well that I always feel like I can smell and taste it.  More paintings of cheese please!
    • I particularly look forward to his paintings of fruits with a soft skin - and the nuances and subtleties of the colours he employs
    • I very much enjoy the way his palette always changes with the seasons and the weather- and how much I look forward to his paintings of spring and autumn in Provence
    Books about art and painting need excellent colour reproduction and I'd very much like to congratulate Julian and Ruth on their choice of printers as the colours are absolutely excellent and my softback copy has a very nice quality feel to it.  Nice to see also that this is a book which is produced by printers who are fully Forest Stewardship Council certified.

    You can order a copy of the book from Julian's website where you can also see a preview of the book which allows you to read the Preface and the Introduction.

    Alternatively stockists currently include John Sandoe in Chelsea, 'The Book House' in Thame, Oxfordshire and the RHS Bookshop at Wisley. Or click on the following link if you prefer to order from Amazon UK - Postcard from Provence: Paintings by Julian Merrow-Smith


    Postcard from Provence on Making A Mark

    I've followed Julian's endeavours closely over the years and below, so if you've not read them before, these are my posts celebrating Julian's very impressive project ably supported by Ruth and the cats!  The first one below also features an interview with Julian.
    • The 1000th Postcard from Provence 17 Oct 2008
      Congratulations to Julian Merrow Smith - today's the day of the 1000th Postcard from Provence! I've got an interview with Julian in this blog post, but first let's recap on what's happened during the last 999 paintings. (In which Julian talks about the book proposal)
    • "Postcard from Provence" - new in site auction system 26 Feb 2007
      This is what Julian had to say this morning to the c.4,000 members of his mailing list .  "February marks the second anniversary of 'Postcard from Provence'. In the two years since it's inception shiftinglight.com has received a quarter of a million visitors and nearly 2 million page views and the mailing list has nearly 4000 members, a success beyond our wildest dreams."
    • Postcard from Provence: two years on 16 Feb 2007
      I've been getting a Postcard from Provence in my inbox for over a year but today is the second anniversary of the very first post (of an oil painting of an oyster on a postcard) by Julian Merrow Smith on his extremely popular and very successful painting a day blog.
    • Making A Mark: Blogging Art in 2006 - The Making A Mark Awards 30 December 2006 (Julian shared the Painting a Day Stickability Prize)
    • Making A Mark: Blogging Art in 2006 - The Making A Mark Awards Part 2 30 December 2006 (in which his wife Ruth won the "Tales from the Frontline" Mention in Dispatches award for being my favourite blog by somebody who lives with an artist). 
    • Postcard from Provence 21 Feb 2006
      One of my very favourite blogs - and probably the reason why I started getting into blogging - is "Postcard from Provence", a diary in paintings.  Julian Merrow-Smith has lived in Provence for the last 8 years or so in a tiny village called Crillon le Brave.  (written 2 days before the profile in the New York Times)
    For those who've not studied Julian's work before, one of the aspects worth noting is that since February 2006, his paintings have become very collectable - there's very rarely more than one postcard painting available for sale.....
    The best was the day of the New York Times article in February 2006. I still had forty paintings from the first year unsold and then it went bananas. Ruth and I were putting up red dots faster than we could type and keeping track of the emails and purchases was quite a feat. I sold everything that I had hanging around in the studio in two crazy hours.
    Julian Merrow Smith
    Links:  Postcard from Provence: Paintings by Julian Merrow-Smith [Softback; 160 pages; ISBN:978-2-9534500-0-2 RRP $34.95 (€25.00/£22.50) ]
    Posted by Making A Mark on Saturday, June 19, 2010 4 comments
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    Thursday, June 17, 2010

    The Websites of Contemporary Painters in the UK

    I've now updated yesterday's post John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize 2010: shortlist announced about the painters living or professionally based in the UK who have been selected for the £25,000 John Moores Painting Prize 2010.  It now includes links to their websites for those where I'm reasonably confident that I've been able to identify the correct one!

    This means that, if you can't get to see the exhibition - or maybe were not selected, you can now check out the websites and work of the contemporary painters who have been selected for this major prize in contemporary painting. 

    That gives you some insight into the sort of painting which gets selected - which is not to say that a different panel might not have different views next time around.

    It also shows you something of the way in which artists websites have been developing as a marketing tool - and options for how best to display art when your viewers are judging your work but are not up close and personal

    Judges selecting work - up close and personal

    As always when doing one of my major artists' website search exercises, I've learned a few things about the current status and state of play of artists' websites in the UK.

    Below you can find my notes of observations made this morning during the search - with some suggestions as to how websites might be improved.

    Ubiquitous
    • virtually all painters now have websites.  By this I mean that an artist’s work can be found  on their own website, on a gallery’s website (usually because of their inclusion in an exhibition) or on some sort of compendium website.  I noticed a number had got themselves listed on the Saatchi Gallery website - although I used that to find their website proper.
    • younger artists are now much more web aware.  The very high percentage of selected artists who have websites supports a notion that I’ve had for some time.  This is that, whether or not they like it, virtually all younger artists now recognise how vital it is to have their artwork and their identity as an artist/painter represented in some way on the Internet.  I’m not saying all the artists selected are young - but virtually all of those who were had websites 
    • most artists websites could be found pretty quickly and easily.  I was absolutely amazed at how many artists’ websites came top of my google search.  Mostly these were artists who had chosen to have a website in their own name. 
    Design and functionality
    • some websites were very impressive.  Much more so than many that I routinely come across.  It's worth taking a look just to get some ideas.
    • many websites loaded very fast.  That’s going to become very important to painters who have sites laden with images now that Google has changed its ranking algorithm to factor in load times.  However some artists (or their website designers) had obviously had not checked the size of files which were being loaded - and they didn't load so fast or had too big a site.  (I'm a prime culprit on the latter)
    • still a lot of Flash about. This one is interesting.  Personally if I had Adobe Flash on my website right now I’d be getting rid of it.  Two main reasons plus some more which are also very important:
      • The iPad resolutely refuses to use Adobe Flash Apple’s argument is that Flash does not meet open system standards and is also a security problem, a resource hog, crashes computers and generally does not work well on mobile systems and wears out batteries very fast!  I have to say I see their point.   Instead Apple have opted for systems which permit a 10 hour battery life - which means that the both the iPhone and iPad will be used more and more for internet access on a daily basis.  If this becomes a really important way for people to access the internet then you’ll definitely want to make sure your website to be capable of being seen on the iPhone and iPad.
      Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. Apple - Thoughts on Flash
      • Use of flash means that it’s difficult to provide unique URLs for specific pages on your website or paintings in your portfolio. Which means people can’t share your work with clients, galleries, dealers etc.
      • Flash causes privacy problems Enough said?
      • Flash does not provide universal accessibility (in the visual disability sense of the word). You can read more about criticisms of Flash here
    • I got very frustrated by the fact I couldn't identify specific individual works quickly on very many sites.  Slideshows which lack data are not helpful.  The virtually total lack of any search facility also did not help. 

    What to do if you want to have an impact on the internet
    • if you get selected for a major art competition...DO make sure that:
      • you’ve got a website sorted prior to the announcement of the shortlist, even if it’s just a site with your name as the domain name pointing to the site you want people to look at.  I always look for the artist’s own website as an indicator of where I should look for better quality images.  Make sure the website has an accurate description and is tagged.  Links to your website from some major sites can be helpful in getting it to appear on the first page of Google (although i will personally look through up to 5 pages to try and find the artist's own website.)
      • you use the same name for the competition and your website.  Those who use variations on their name in different places just cause confusion - and won’t be found.
      • you’ve got an image of the chosen work in a pretty prominent place on your website.  I was able to identify a tiny number of the works selected.  You’d be surprised by how many people failed to make this adjustment and I think this is an area for development amongst most artists.  The only time you wouldn’t do this is if there is an embargo on the work having been displayed anywhere else prior to the exhibition.  Failure to use news pages and hyperlinks is an 'own goal'.  Getting selected for a major art competition is a huge boost for a CV and some restrained boasting is allowed! ;)
    • if you really want to remain anonymous and unknown on the internet make sure you're born to parents who give you a very common name. It’s very, very difficult tracking down people with common names. I probably spend more time going backwards and forwards across many sites for people with common names than anything else when trying to tie websites into lists of people selected for an art competition.  Unfortunately I almost always end up failing to arrive at any sort of definite conclusion as to which is the correct site. One small trick which a number of artists is to include a word you wish to be closely associated with in the domain name of your website.  For example instead of www.another.co.uk you can have www.another-art.co.uk  or www.another-paintings.co.uk
    • if you want to cause confusion share your name with one or more well known people on the internet.   I feel ever so sorry for anybody who has a doppelganger who is big in some aspect completely unrelated to art.  Only one thing is worse and that's having the same name as a painter whose artwork you would not wish to be identified with! From my all too frequent detective work on the internet I can tell you what really helps to identify you as you.
      • Have a news page and keep it up to date - including announcements of all art competitions you've been selected for.
      • Have a comprehensive exhibitions page.  I can very often work out who is who by looking at gallery pages and noting which galleries they are exhibiting with and then looking at the artist page on the gallery site. 
      • Make sure you bio information identifies what is unique about you (eg where you live ior have your studio) also helps enormously.
    I haven’t hazarded a guess for artists where I either couldn’t find a site or there was more than one artist and it wasn’t clear which one had been selected. However if by any chance I've got any of the links wrong I'll be more than happy to change it!

    I'd be very happy to have comments on my observations and thoughts about matters might be improved.  Plus do you have any:
    • comments on how artists' websites have progressed in recent years
    • suggestions as to what improvements artists can make to make their websites even better?
    Links:
    Posted by Making A Mark on Thursday, June 17, 2010 4 comments
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    Wednesday, June 16, 2010

    John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize 2010: shortlist announced



    The shortlist for the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize 2010 has been announced.

    I wrote about this prize back in February this year - see John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize 2010.  The following prizes will be awarded
    • a first prize of £25,000
    • four further prizes of £2,500 each
    • visitors choice prize - announced at the end of the exhibition
    The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool will be hosting the JM2010 exhibition between 18 September 2010 - 3 January 2011.

    All artists who enter one painting for the Prize must either live or be professionally based in the UK.   Paintings must be new, in any medium and designed to hang on a wall and must be the wholly original work of the artist.
    The full list of 2010’s shortlisted artists is:

    1. Cornelia Baltes: THERE YOU ARE!
    2. Jon Braley: untitled
    3. GL Brierley: JIGGYJILLY 
    4. Deborah Burnstone: Freeway
    5. Darren Coffield: PISODICAL
    6. Keith Coventry: Spectrum Jesus
    7. Edward Coyle: Multiplicity study
    8. Theo Cuff: untitled
    9. Stuart Cumberland: 240Y/1 2009
    10. Ian Davenport: Puddle Painting: Dioxazine
    11. Philip Diggle: For Your Pleasure
    12. Tim Ellis: United in Different Guises XXXXIII
    13. Geraint Evans: An Alpine Biodome
    14. Adam Fearon: Untitled
    15. Damien Flood: Drip
    16. Nick Fox: Metatopia 
    17. David Fulford: Near the Site
    18. Mikey Georgeson: Untitled (Molecule of Intuition)
    19. Chris Hamer: Crook 
    20. Andy Harper: Frau Troffea
    21. Richard Harrison: Mountain Peaks
    22. Sigrid Holmwood: Butchering a Pig
    23. Phil Illingworth: 3D painting No.1 (experiments with colour reflection)
    24. Lee Johnson: The Kerchief or Dr Olfato's Welcome
    25. Neal Jones: ORANGE PAVING
    26. Joseph Long: Hortus Botanicus
    27. Elizabeth McDonald: Bee Keepers I
    28. Nicholas Middleton: "Protest, April 1st 2009"
    29. Michael Miller: Suspended Animation
    30. Matthew Mounsey: Prehistoric Sex Machine
    31. Jost Münster: to the left
    32. Cara Nahaul: Somewhere between prayer and agenda
    33. Narbi Price: Untitled See Saw Painting
    34. Steven Proudfoot: The Party
    35. Sabrina Shah: Witness
    36. Annabelle Shelton: Helter Skelter Runway 2009
    37. George Sherlock: Polycrylic Decades
    38. Michael Simpson: Bench Painting Untitled
    39. Henrietta Simson: Giotto's Template
    40. Veronica Smirnoff: Lubo
    41. Ian Peter Smith: Matter at the edge
    42. Daniel Sturgis: Still Squallings
    43. Geraldine Swayne: Industrialist on Wheels
    44. Jason Thompson: REFRACTIONS (ROBERT HOOKE)
    45. Christian Ward: Frontier Monument

    How the judges work:  You can watch videos of the jury talking about the judging here.  This covers both Stage 1 and Stage 2 (or click the link in the video at the top of the page)

    The judges are:
    • Gary Hume - painter
    • Alison Watt - painter (one of my favourites)
    • Ged Quinn - painter
    • Goshka Macuga - painter
    • Sir Norman Rosenthal  - former Exhibitions Secretary of the Royal Academy of Arts
    Follow the progress of the competition on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/JohnMoores2010

    Watch the announcement of the prizewinner LIVE on the Internet:  For the first time in the history of the competition the announcement of the winner and runner-up prizewinners will be broadcast live on the internet on Thursday 16 September 2010 at: www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/johnmooreslive.

    I'll be trying to find links to the artists' websites (where they exist) during the course of the day so you might like to check back later. NOW UPDATED.

    Posted by Making A Mark on Wednesday, June 16, 2010 2 comments
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