Eye Play: an exhibition via My Space

Connections 1
copyright Trevor Price

While at the Bankside Gallery on Wednesday I talked to award-winning artist Frank Kiely who works there part-time. He told me about a new exhibition he is curating with two other people - Bula Chakravarty and Temsuyanger Longkumer.

The three curators have hired the Bankside Gallery for the exhibition. They've also decided to develop a 'home' page on My Space for their "Eye Play" exhibition. This is helping to raise its profile and get the word out (I love the fact that it's birth sign is Virgo!)

Eye Play
A playground for the latest Prints in Town.
29th Aug - 9th Sept 2007
Curated by Bula Chakravarty Agbo, Frank Kiely & Temsuyanger Longkumer.
@ Bankside Gallery, 48 Hopton Streen, London SE1 9JH

I've heard previously about people using My Space to create an awareness of their art - but this is the first time I've seen it done really effectively for an exhibition. According to the My Space site it's an exhibition of prints featuring established and up-coming artists bringing a wide genre of images from the traditional to the contemporary expertise of printmaking.

Athena
copyright Ruth Uglow

Frank told me that the artists involved in EyePlay have mainly been nominated by each of the curators plus they accepted a small number of emailed submissions after fellow artists heard about the show through word of mouth.

Frank and his fellow curators considered each artists work carefully so they could achieve their aim of having a show showing the full diversity of artists working in print. Not all the artists are printmakers. Some are illustrators, painters, digital artist, video and installation artists who also use printmaking in their art making.

The curators have been able to attract the support of Norman Ackroyd RA who encourages exhibitions that boost the importance of printmaking as an art form. Norman Ackroyd is a Senior Academician and hung the the Print Room at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition this year.

Hollow Floor
Copyright Andrew Turnbull

The contributors to the show are mixed. They include many established RWS and RE members in the show who are happy to support this exciting exhibition. There are also some graduates of the Royal College of Art (both Kiely and Temsuyanger are RCA graduates) and graduates of the Camberwell Art College and other different colleges in the UK and abroad plus one artist without formal training.

One of the interesting things the curators noticed while putting the exhibition together is that 95% of the artists have some sort of connection with South London. Many of the participating artists live there, some went to college there while others run galleries in south London. Is this the beginning of a South London Print Movement?

It's great to see emerging artists really using the facilities at their disposal - both 'bricks and mortar' and online - to promote a gallery perspective on the sort of work which they want to promote. Good to see that they've also managed to get the support of a senior Academician which helps lend credibility to the quality of their show.

I've now got an invite to the Private View on 29th August!

Links:

• Eye Play - on My Space
  
• Bankside Gallery
• Making A Mark: Frank Kiely - an irish artist in London
• Making A Mark: Royal Society of Painter-Printmarkers - Annual Exhibition 2007 (at which Frank won a prize)
  

Gardens in Art - a new squidoo lens

The Lemon Tree House
19.5" x 25.5", pastel on rembrandt pastel card
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I've created two new Squidoo Lens - one for Gardens in Art and one for Flowers in Art. They include (or will do shortly) links to:

• all the Making A Mark blogposts for each project
  
• all the Making A Mark blog posts labelled 'gardens' (or flowers)
• a link to the search results for all MAM blog posts mentioning "garden" (or "flower")
  
• books mentioned during the course of the project
  
• hyperlinks to information on different websites identified as part of the project

The Gardens in Art lens has just been set up and will look more like the Flowers in Art one as it progresses. I still have to include all the hyperlinks identified during the course of the project in the Flowers in Art lens but will be doing that in the near future.

All in all these lens are intended to be the place where I will be keeping all the links I want to know about or use in relation to visiting and drawing and painting gardens (or flowers). There's a facility to rate the lenses for anybody who would like to do so.

I'm minded to include links to the blogs of people who draw or paint blogs of gardens or flowers on a regular basis. I can do a link to the label for "garden" or "gardens" and "flowers" - which will then pick up all relevant posts if they are suitably labelled. Just let me know if you'd like a link and what you use to identify your relevant posts.

The Lemon Tree House (May 1995)

One of the interesting things about drawing and painting plein air in different parts of the world is you get to learn how quite ordinary things can vary in different parts of the world. For example, "The Lemon Tree House" is a pastel painting of a small and rather old Greek house (in Volissos on the Aegean island of Chios) which only had lemon trees in the garden around the house. These then threw amazing shadows onto the white painted walls of the house. And that's not dodgy perspective drawing - the wall was in fact falling down and lurching very badly! At the side of the garden was a field containing amazing wild flowers. It struck me as a very appropriate way to garden in a small rural village in Greece.

It's not the best painting I've ever done but it was the first one when I began to realise what I might be able to accomplish using pastels and a larger support as it generated a "Wow" reaction from everybody I was painting with. I completed it in one sitting of maybe two and half hours in pastels on an abrasive support (Rembrandt pastel card). It measures 19.5" x 25.5".

Links:

• Gardens in Art - Resources for Artists
• Flowers in Art - Resources for Artists
• Pastels and Pencils - Houses and Gardens Gallery
  

Bankside Sketchbook

"Leaves from a Sketchbook"
- a view of part of the exhibition at the Bankside Gallery

Yesterday I visited the current exhibition at The Bankside Gallery. "Leaves from a sketchbook" shows how work progresses from the sketch to completed artwork - as print or watercolour painting and as exemplified by the working processes of members of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers or the Royal Watercolour Society.

Leaves from a Sketchbook
Mon 16-Jul-2007 to Sun 12-Aug-2007
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Learn from artists prepatory sketches how original prints and watercolours develop from an initial idea into a flawless work of art. A unique chance to gain an insight into the skill of the artist, which is rarely seen in our modern mass-produced culture.

'Sketch' has a number of meanings. This post last year about my visit to "Under Cover": an exhibition of sketchbooks at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard university suggests that a sketch may be used for:

• Observation: this focuses on the documentation of the external world and includes many such travel and nature studies and sketches recording an artist's travels.
• Invention: this follows the artists' digressions and internal journeys as they develop compositional ideas

I noticed that rather more printers seemed to use a sketchbook for sketches than the watercolourists. This seemed somewhat odd until it occurred to me since the thinking process which has to go into the making of a print is rather detailed that this could promote the use of a sketchbook - as presumably sketches are very helpful to that process. Pieces by watercolourists seemed to either be developed from quite careful pencil drawings or conventional plein air sketches in watercolour.

There were also some lovely pen and ink sketches of figures by David Paskett RWS which were used as source material for a quite complex watercolour painting which featured sihermen mending nets.

The Vice President of the Royal Watercolour Society, David Firmstone, has chosen to frame two of his sketchbooks and was showing them in relation to the work they stimulated (the large picture on the far left of the photo of the exhibiiton in the gallery).

Most completed works and associated sketches were priced to sell. It was interesting to see how many sketches had sold which suggested to me that there is a definite market for the less well resolved work. However prices which were rather less than the completed works might also have had something to do with it!

It was also interesting to see some artists happy to sell the finished work but not so happy to part with extracts from their sketchbook or their drawings of their original idea. Tobias Till ARE was responsible for a very impressive large print overview of London City Airport (and the City of London) - but was not selling the original pen and ink drawing that it came from. Check out his website for equally impressive large works of places and views around London.

I had a chat with Frank Kiely ARE while I was there and then went off take a photo of his work (see below) and then to look at the exhibition. By the time I came back there was a "red dot" on his print from his Gulliver series (the picture on the top left below) because it had just sold! Frank's work is interesting because his sketchbook is his camera. He takes lots of photos as reference material from which he then extracts composes and assembles the constituent parts of his final image which is planned in advance of this photography.

works by Frank Keily - in the exhibition
copyright Frank Keily

One of the things I particularly liked about this exhibition was the fact that the label to identify the work of every artist also included a photograph of the artist in the studio or working plein air in addition to their name. I though this was a great idea I don't want artists to be anonymous names - I like to know something about them - even if it's just what they look like.

As a result I also learned how Annie Williams works with her still life set-up which was very interesting (the photo showed her sat down with a drawing board rested against a ledge on which sat a small plinth on the top of which sat the still life - which then made it at eye level.) I liked the way we also saw three versions of the same still life by Annie Williams - as a pencil drawing, a proof - aquatint and wash and as a watercolour painting. It neatly demonstrated that one composition canwork in a number of different ways.

You can see what future exhibitions are at the Bankside Gallery by consulting the menu under Bankside Gallery on their website. These tend to focus on exhibitions of watercolours or printmaking and artists' prints.

An aside: As I came over the Millenium Bridge from St Paul's to Bankside, I noticed that the high tide seemed to be very high indeed - probably due to all the flood water from the Thames at and around its source in the west country reaching London at last.

This was the scene outside Tate Modern - with the waves from passing boats splashing up to the top of the bank level with the walkway used by people walking along the South Bank.

Links:

• Bankside Gallery
• Making A Mark: Frank Kiely - an irish artist in London

Gardens in Art: scope and resources

The Rill Garden, Wollerton Old Hall
12" x 16", coloured pencil on Art Spectrum Plein Air Board
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

In August, my monthly project is going to focus on "gardens in art". By this I mean:

• looking at drawings and paintings of gardens
  
• studying how different artists have responded to the motif of 'the garden' in order to understand more about different approaches to drawing and painting the garden
  
• identifying possible influences for my own work
  
• producing more work of my own around the theme of 'gardens'.

I'm open to suggestions about which artists and which topics to look at. You'll find a very provisional list of possibles below. I'm not sure how the project will develop at the moment as I'm rather feeling my way - but I suspect I'll mix generic themes with the development of my own art.

If people would like to participate - either in terms of commenting on my posts or producing art it'll be great to have company of the journey!

Gardens and art: some possible generic themes

• gardens which inspire artists
  
• artists who inspire gardens
  
• how gardens have been painted over time
• how gardens vary by country/culture
  
• Monet and Giverny.
  
• Van Gogh - specifically focusing on his treatment of gardens in drawings and paintings
• Arts and Crafts Gardens - including William Morris's gardens.
• the kitchen garden (because I love walled kitchen gardens!)
  
• examples of contemporary painters of gardens

Developing my own art: a developing agenda

• a review of my approach to date
  
• thinking about composition possibilities - how to tackle gardens as a subject
  
• seasons and colour palettes
  
• pure media versus mixed media
• abstracted versus
  

Some resources and links

I'm very conscious that the two words 'artist' and 'garden' seem to get linked in a number of very twee ways which I'll be seeking to avoid at all costs. For the moment, let's just say it's making searching on the internet "interesting"!

Here are some links which I've found relating to artists and gardens:

• Art History: a list of paintings with garden in the title - on the Atheneaum website
• Giverny - Monet's House and Gardens
• Tate Exhibition (2004) - Art of the Garden
• The Holborne Museum of Art, Bath: Painting the West Country House and Garden
• Charleston - an artists home and garden
• Derek Jarman - and the his garden at Prospect Cottage Dungeness.
• ...and a Google Image search of 'paintings of gardens' throws up some interesting images - including some by people who know me and this blog! Check out whether you can see a painting of yours listed.......
  

and these relate to gardens:

• Garden Finders Lists and Map (various countries)
• National Gardens Scheme and the Garden Finder
  
• National Trust
• Royal Horticultural Society

Here are some books which I expect to be consulting:

• Online:
• Marie-Luise Gothein's HISTORY OF GARDEN ART
• Books:
• The Illustration of Plants and Gardens 1500-1850 (V&A Publications 1982) - I've had this for years and years........
• Monet's Passion Elizabeth Murray (1989)
  
• Arts and Crafts Gardens Wendy Hitchmough (V&A Publications 2005). I bought this yesterday when I realised that I'd already visited about two thirds of the ones that this book lists as recommended for a visit!
• The Gardens of William Morris Jill Duchess of Hamilton, Penny Hart and John Simons (Frances Lincoln 1998). Kelmscott Manor is unfortunately closed to the public due to recent flooding - but I have The Red House close by.

So - that's where I've got to - lots to do plus lots of gardens to revisit I hope! If you'd like to make any suggestions please use the comments facility. If you'd like to join in please leave a note of your blog post address and I'll visit and find your project posts this month.

Note about "The Rill Garden": I developed "The Rill Garden" from material collected (sketch and photos) during my visit to Wollerton Old Hall in April. This a link to my blog post about the visit and the sketch I completed at the time.

You can also see a slideshow of completed paintings of gardens in the gallery devoted to Houses and Gardens on my website.

6th Annual UKCPS Open International Exhibition - work accepted

Livio de Marchi Pears #1
297mm x 210mm, coloured pencil on Arches Hot Press
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Yesterday the United Kingdom Coloured Pencil Society started to notify artists who have had work accepted for their 6th Annual International Open Exhibition (2007). There's nothing on the website as yet but I've been informed in writing that my work "Livio de Marchi Pears #1" has been accepted. It will now be hung in the exhibition which runs from Sunday 16th September to Sunday 14th October at Patchings Art Centre in Nottingham. Naturally I'm very pleased.

I'm also very pleased to hear that Leslie Evans, whose work was featured in this post re work accepted to the 15th Annual International Exhibition of the Colored Pencils Society of America, has also had her work accepted for the UKCPS exhibition too. Last year I had the good fortune to meet her in Albuquerque and this year I get to see her work in person!

The jurors are asked to select paintings to produce a varied exhibition showing the full range of capabilities of the coloured pencil medium. The rules of entry for this exhibition are that works should be completed in "pure" coloured pencil only. You can see works in previous exhibitions on this link. As you will see, it has tended to focus on highly realistic work to date - and it will be interesting to see whether this has changed this year.

Links:

• United Kingdom Coloured Pencil Society
• Making A Mark: International exhibitions of coloured pencil artwork: CPSA and UKCPS
• Making A Mark: CPSA 15th Annual Exhibition