Working in a series - drawing and painting ponds

Ecology Park Pond Series - 28th December 2008 #2

14" x 10", coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I'm working up to doing a major post about my new project of drawing my local Ecology Park Pond during 2009. I've already outlined what I want to try and do in my post Reflections on a Pond on one of my group blogs - Watermarks but I also want to say something more about the pond and what I've learned in creating artwork in the last week or so.

But that's tomorrow's post.

I'm looking today at some other artists who've also drawn and painted ponds in different seasons and at different times of day as I intend to do. What I'm trying to do here is to look at what i can learn from

• the different ways people approached the process of making art about a pond.
• what other artists did in terms of working in a series
  

There are lots of artists who have painted a pond or two but very few who have made studies of ponds and the surrounding environment. The two most famous 'pond projects' are probably:

• Claude Monet's paintings of the Water Garden at Giverny
• Kevin McPherson's 'Reflections on a Pond' project

However there are also other artists who've done the same thing - some of whom I've found on the Internet - and others who I hope you will tell me about.

Claude Monet and 'Landscapes of Water' (the water garden at Giverny)

The water in the Water Garden at Giverny isn't often described as a pond but that's in effect what it is. Monet painted the Waterlilies and the water garden at Giverny - including

• the Japanese Bridge (12 views of the bridge painted between July-September 1899; exhibited by Durand-Ruel in November/December 1900)
• the waterlilies (starts summer 1903, continues each summer in summer 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908; exhibited at various exhibitions after these dates)

I looked at Why and how Monet developed his series paintings back in October. In September 2007, as part of my Gardens in Art project, I also wrote a couple of blog posts about:

• Gardens in Art: Monet and the water garden at Giverny
• Gardens in Art: Monet's final Nympheas

I've found my 'big book' about the waterlilies (Monet, water lilies / Charles F. Stuckey. New York : Hugh Lauter Levin Associates : Distributed by Macmillan, с 1988.) Charles F. Stuckey is a professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and am going to be rereading this. It also has 36 pages which fold out to give panoramic reproductions!

What I've learned about the way Monet worked

• He started plein air but often finished work in the studio
• given that the location was part of his home he was able to start several paintings at different times of the day and in different weather conditions and then continue them later if the weather changed
  
• Monet is very often painting the reflections of the sky and the trees in the water
• He didn't paint the same view all the time
  
• He often takes a close up view of the waterlilies on the water
• he painted the water garden even as his eyesight deteriorated. Some of his paintings are a graphic description of what happens to your eyesight if you get cataracts.
• He destroyed a number of canvases he wasn't happy with. It's possible that these were sketch paintings from which he developed canvases for finished work.
• the name of the exhibition of 48 water lily paintings (1909) was subtitled "Landscapes of Water" - a term I like very much
  

Kevin McPherson and Reflections on a Pond

I did a brief overview of Kevin MacPherson's Reflections on a Pond project the day after Boxing Day walk which took in the Ecology Park Pond. (see the Watermarks blog - Reflections on a Pond)

MacPherson's project has been highlighted by some painters as a precursor of some of the painting a day projects - although interestingly he didn't actually paint every day.

My understanding is that he produced a painting of the alpine pond, which he could see from his home in the mountains east of Taos, New Mexico - for every day of a year - in different seasons, weather, light and times of the day. However it apparently took him five years to complete the project and he produced 368 paintings in total!

His aim was to capture the different effects of light as the seasons changed. Given the project was about change he held certain things constant - the subject was the same, he painted on small 6x8" panels and he used a limited palette. I gather he also made brief journal entries about each painting.

Subsequently, his paintings have been reproduced in a book about the project and some of the paintings now go on tour on a regular basis. It's now also got its very own Facebook Group! On Facebook, you can see photographs of some of the paintings in a recent exhibition in Pasadena - and see how the paintings look together. They seem to be arranged by seasons.
Watermarks - Reflections on a Pond 27th December 2008

On his website MacPherson states

Claude Monet and other Impressionists of the nineteenth century sought to capture the fast-changing effects of light in their paintings. Likewise, as Macpherson painted his Pond series, he was less concerned with the subject of the pond itself than with the effects of light at different times of the day and year. Macpherson observed and captured the colors he saw, rather than putting down the colors one might think should be there.
Reflections on a Pond a visual journey by Kevin MacPherson

“Reflections on a Pond,” a series of 195 paintings by Kevin Macpherson, will be on display from May 15 to June 15, 2009 at Middletown Arts Center, 130 North Verity Parkway, Middletown, OH 45042. (they've got an incredibly slow website)

Learning: Key features of his approach are:

• he painted the same view over and over again - in different light, time of day, month and season.
  
• he didn't paint every day - but did produce more than 365 paintings across the seasons over a period of some 5 years
• his paintings reflected different light on at different times of day on different days in different weeks, months, seasons
  
• he stuck to a constant 3:4 format through using 6x8" panels
• he used a limited palette - which presumably have some unity to the series of paintings which, I guess, he always intended to
• most importantly - as he painted - he began to have a different relationship with the place.

Other artists

I did some searching on the Internet and also came up with these artists

Kurt Jackson

In 2006 Kurt Jackson had an exhibition at the about Ponds, Pools and Puddles at the The Lemon Street Gallery.

He doesn't paint the same pond repeatedly so much as paints ponds and pools. He has some interesting definitions

• pond - a small body of water
• pool - a small body of standing water
• puddle - a small pool of water

I love his description on the exhibition page on his website of the water found in ponds, pools, and puddles.

When you approach one of these small enclosed bodies of water set into the land you might see it as a mirror reflecting the sky or as a gap in the landscape – maybe almost a hole in the earth, an entrance into the unknown. There is a sense of mystery there – sometimes dark and apparently bottomless and full of beasties, sometimes silver, echoing the light of the sky above; with birds flying through it. No wonder these places became associated with the old stories and tales as well as being used as places of offering in prehistoric times. They’re both a magnet for life and a home to a world of their own – full of life whether amongst the rocks on the foreshore, hidden in the heather and gorse on the moor, lying in a quarry or in the middle of the village green.

What I noted:

• the majority of his paintings are pools associated with a marine environment
• His exhibition images suggest he's experimented with a number of different ways of painting ponds and pools - very much influenced by the place and the way the water appears in the light.
• the paintings are an abstraction of reality but still have a strong sense of place
• I liked the sense of what is possible just using a pencil - see "Hazy warm evening, ebbing tide, Priest Cove"
  

Joseph Raffael [Update: this artist was not included in the original post]

Another artist who has painted the surface and vegetation of pools and ponds is Joseph Raffael. His vivid and lush watercolours are an education in complex pattern-making. I've written about him previously on this blog when reviewing his book (which I highly recommend to all watercolourists) - the same comment (below) applies to his paintings of ponds.

You can see his work on his website - I recommend the archives for a more full appreciation of his work with flowers - which are very large, complex, colourful and apparently both saturated and transparent at the same time. His processes are fascinating and are explained in the book about his work - Reflections of Nature - and also in his online autobiography here.
Making A Mark (27 July 2007) Flowers in Art: Contemporary Artists #1

Here are a couple of examples of his work involving lily pads Morning at Kodai and Dusk at Kodai and this is a fish painting Fish Dream II

What I learned:

• a macro approach to vegetation and the surface of a pond can produce very attractive paintings if the focus is on colour and complex pattern making
  
• his water paintings involved pre-painting his canvases with 10+ coats of white gesso which were sanded between each coat. His use of oils diluted his oils with turpentine on this surface gave his oil paintings of water a look of being lit from behind
  
• he started his water paintings from photographs of waterways given to him
  
• he projects photographs to draw out his paintings. You can see an image of him drawing in a new painting.
• common features of his paintings are reflections of vegetation and sky, lily pads and fish.
• he rarely paints the surroundings of ponds, preferring to paint a slice of the surface.
  
• he's painted the same lotus pool in Bali that I have (must get my very poor watercolour painting out and see if it can be resurrected in some way!)

His work can be seen at various shows across the USA in 2009.

Tony Clayden

He has a series of Winter pond drawings from Nadderwater which is a small hamlet in a rural Devon. The pond was new in 2000.

I began to observe the pond and its seasonal changes during the winter of 2002-3 and have continued to do so throughout the year, although the winters have received particular attention. The drawings are reflections upon the pond and its immediate surroundings in winter, when it freezes, when vegetation is in winter mode and the entire pond is quiescent. They have been executed on paper, using ink, watercolour, acrylic and pastel, forming a series of thematic variations.

What I noted:

• He's very interested in the edges of the pond and the relationship between water and vegetation - something I've already identified as a subject and started to do in Frozen Pond
• there are issues to do with composition and focal point - the ones I think are more successful appear to place more emphasis on leading and guiding the eye into the painting.
  
• His mixed media approach looks very interesting and is one which I think I'm likely to progress towards as my project progresses.

Niamh Collins

Niamh Collins, a graduate of the Royal College of Art, has developed a Pond Life series. They're a series of eight small-ish paintings in oil on canvas, but not on stretchers. She has a very unusual approach to creating her vivid pictures.

I have been concentrating on making abstract paintings, with an emphasis on a strong and distinctive use of colour. I am interested in the process of creating a painting, and how elements of accident and chance influence the outcome.

As I work on each painting, I paint out and ‘edit’ details, until I am left with islands of activity within the picture.

When making the work, I often use a basic printing technique, with clothing and textiles.

What I noted:

• her particular interest seems to be the small creatures who live in ponds - which hadn't occurred to be me as possible subject matter.
• the colours she used are an enhanced version of 'real life' colour
  
• her print-making approach to painting is interesting
  

Nature artists

There are various naturalists who record pond life.

Koi Carp artists

For some reason, there seem to be a set of artists who like drawing koi carp - but I never seen to get a sense of where the koi carp are!

Who do you know paints ponds?

Do let me know if you know of any artists who paint ponds.

[Note: The drawing at the top is the second developed from my trip to the pond a week ago last Sunday. You can see the first one in Making A Mark in 2009 - The Plan]

3.30pm: Updated for addition of Kurt Jackson - who I managed to forget! duh!

4th January 2009 - Who's made a mark this week?

I'd like to wish all my regular readers of "Who's made a mark this week?" all over the world a Happy New Year.

Here's hoping that 2009 will be a year in which creativity overflows, art knowledge and skills are developed, studios get revamped, art continues to sell, accounts get completed on time, your blog gets more readers and your time management skills get so good that you actually manage to finish the 'to do' list every single day!

I've had a lot of visitors this week reading Making A Mark in 2009 - The Plan. Thank you all for the very many comments - it seems as if the principles about how I want to operate in 2009 were ones that a lot of people identified with.

Lots of you have been turning your thoughts to 2009 and mapping out what you need in your plan for the year.

I listed some at the end of my post about 2009

• Tracy Helgeson - My Road Map for 2009
• Jeanette Jobson - 2009 - The Three 'Ps'
• Robyn Sinclair - Outperforming dog - which will take some beating when it comes to being focused and succinct!

Plus here are some of the more interesting blog posts about 2009 which I read this week:

• Michelle Basic Hendry (Artscapes - Musings on Art & Life) - Happy New Year! This comments on the benefits of being SMART but also on focusing on goals rather than expectations.
• Roz Stendhal (Roz Wound Up ) - Happy 2009! (One Day Early) This explained Roz's habit of setting the tone for a year by the way she behaves on New Year's day - a really fascinating post.

Space study #22: Leaves - Pen and ink on 70 lb natural white paper, 2 7/8"x9".

• Anna (See. Be. Draw ) - "Tithing" to the art spirit which introduces the concept of tithing your time. I really liked her drawing (right) - a space study picking up on her theme for 2009 of spaciousness. Using a narrow format sketchbook for a different sort of space for drawing also helps make you look at objects differently. Have you got changing your format on your 'to do' list for 2009?
  

The Art Atlas (image top right) is one of the books as I got as a Christmas present this year. It's an absolutely unique book because it's the first work to treat the art of the whole world from prehistory to the present day through the extensive use of maps. There will be a book review soon!

Art blogs

• Having visited Bali to paint twice I'm really pleased to have discoverd Jennifer Lawson's blog Jennifer Lawson "sketch-a-rama" where she posts vignettes of Balinese life wheer she is currently living.
  
• Casey Klahn (The Colorist ) has come up with a new idea - he posted his view as to the Top Ten Art Blog Posts of 2008 on other people's blogs. I've no idea how I'd get it down to just 10! I think I'm going to have to get to grips with making those little banners!
  
• I've recently discovered realist painter Jeremy Lipking's blog (Jeremy Lipking). He had an interesting post back in November about Pirates selling bootleg copies of art instructions DVDs on eBay.
• The pear people are back in The Last Kiss on Jacqueline Gnott's blog (Realism in Watercolors)
• I completed my end of year review
• On Monday I posted Blogging Art in 2008 - The Making A Mark Awards 2008 (Part 1)
• followed on Tuesday by Blogging Art in 2008 - The Making A Mark Awards (Part 2) - which contained the results of the polls for the best portrait by a female artists and best artwork on a blog in 2008 (see below).
  
• and on New Year's Eve I looked back on Making A Mark in 2008 - the results

(Left) The Making A Mark Award for Best Portrait by a female artist
Zen by Nicole Caulfield (Nicole Caulfield Art Journal )
(Right) The Making A Mark Award for Best Artwork on a blog in 2008
A Walk in the Ocean by Margaret Dyer (Small Pastels and an Occasional Oil)

Art group blogs

• Today UKCPS News is highlighting the new look UKCPS website in A new website for a new year
• A 'dog blog' came to my attention. The Canine Art Guild has a collective blog called Art with a Bark. It's not very clear how people join but I assume it's not a problem if you're a Guild member.
  
• Those interested in nature as well as art - and drawing and painting nature - might like to check out
  
• the Nature Blog Network
• Similarly people who sketch birds might like to check out Surfbirds - which has a list of sketchbooks
• the wildlife art forum of the Bird Forum
• Inspire Me Thursday is a weekly invitation for mixed media artists and creative types to nurture their muses and create - worth taking a look if you like weekly projects (Unfortunately it's Feedburner RSS feed is currently mangled)

Art business & marketing

• 1000Markets is an online gallery site for artists and craftspeople (mostly the latter). It's interesting that it's highlighting locality based artists - which underpins my notion that one of the ways forward in the current economy is to build on communities of interest - one of which is communities of artists in a locality. It's another way of marketing. So, for example we have:
• Handcrafted in Seattle
• Windy City - Chicago's Finest Artisans
• Garden State Artisans

Art economy

• This is the credit crunch - in cartoons
• Ten art market moments of 2008 By Colin Gleadell in the Daily Telegraph. This highlights the prediction by eminent art critic, Jerry Salz that 50 to 100 galleries in New York could close.
• Bloomberg (Art) had a couple of end of year posts reviewing what happened to the art market and auctions during the year
• How Monet, Freud, Hirst Records Led Art-Market Bubble to Burst Art prices extended a seven-year surge for much of 2008, with a Claude Monet painting of water lilies, Lucian Freud’s portrait of a civil servant called Sue and a Francis Bacon triptych setting records.
• Warhol, Hirst Works Languish as Art Prices, Demand Plummet at End of 2008 Damien Hirst’s record “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” sale and collapse of Lehman Brothers Inc. in September marked the turning of the art market in 2008.
• Susan Forbes On Collecting (Forbes) comments on the flight to quality. She asserts that Contemporary Chinese art is dead.
• Ann Rafalko On Collecting (Forbes) predicts people will go back to collecting what they love rather than what is 'hot' (presumably because of the rapid cooling of the art market!) an that there will be a move to liquidate large corporate art collections and corporate sponsorship of exhibitions and free admission days will dry up.

The Bold Prediction

Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons will team up to create a giant, diamond-encrusted version of Koons' famous "Puppy," which will sell through a "private transaction" for $50 billion, and the mystery of Bernard Madoff's missing money will be solved.

Ann Rafalko On Collecting

Art - copyright

• I had a couple of useful responses from readers to my recent post The difference between "copyright free" and "royalty free". (I'm always happy to receive suggestions about useful sites from readers)
  
• Before Christmas, Julie Oakley (Julie Oakley) in Hertfordshire, UK pointed me in the direction of the set of Fine Art Registry articles about various legal aspects of Copyright - see Legal Copyrights - FAR® Exclusive Article. I've now included links to these in Copyright and Orphan Artworks - Resources for Artists
• Then Michelle Basic Hendry SCA (Artscapes - Musings on Art & Life) in Muskoka, Ontario posted Copyright Your Images which provides information about how to use Photoshop to add copyright metadata onto files for the web and a link to the organization trying to set standards for metadata.
  
• People commenting on this post also added other methods. Just thought I'd send you the link in case you found it interesting or useful! The more we can do to help protect our art the better...

Art exhibitions

• Booking for admission to the major Picasso exhibition at the National Gallery in London has opened. You can also book for talks and courses (I'm actually very surprised there are so few listed). Picasso: Challenging the Past will open on 25 February and finish on 7 June 2009. The exhibition will be in the Sainsbury Wing and there is an admission charge
• The British Council to show hoard of 20th-century British art (Times of London)
• LA Times Culture Monster blog has MOCA's Jeremy Strick, the interview
• ....while Bloomberg Art reported on Los Angeles’s MOCA Accepts Broad’s Grant, Hires Chief (Update2) following the resignation of Strick
  

Art studio

I'm going to be doing regular updates about art studios in 2009 - do let me know if you have anything particularly interesting on your blog.

• Jennifer Young (Paintings of France, Italy and beyond) is building an art studio and has a couple of posts about studio lighting which look very useful - see Still in the dark about art studio lighting and Getting lit during the holidays
• Nita Leland in Dayton, Ohio (Exploring Color and Creativity) has some studio storage suggestions.

Art supplies

• Roz Stendhal would like you all to start painting in gouache and to participate in "Project 640 Tubes" which essentially is a plan to get M. Graham & Co. to start making a gouache using PB60. I came across it because Roz has been using incentives - and this week somebody won the competition to receive on her journals.
  

Books and book reviews

• Daily Painters have published their new book Colour, Obsession, Joy and Torment The Daily Painters Art Gallery 2008. I like the fact that the website page devoted to the book provides a good range of pages to preview using the 'look inside' function. The layout looks good. It's got 165 colour pages and has over 500 images by 146 of the Daily Painters Gallery artists.
• 10 Most Popular Books in Blog Blazers should probably have been posted down in the website/blogging section as this are books which were recommended by 40 high profile bloggers.
  

Making A Mark Polls

• I started MAM Poll (January): How often do you post to your blog? This runs for the whole of January and I'll reporting the results in early February. So far, 64 people have voted!
  

Tips and techniques

• James Gurney (Gurney Journey) - winner of the Making A Mark FAQs and Answers Really Useful Medal - demonstrated Drawing Shadows, Drawing Light
• As part of her endeavours to build ner new studio, Jennifer Young (Paintings of France, Italy and beyond) has been looking doing some extensive research about lighting for studios and artists
  
• Getting lit during the holidays discuisses Fluorescent Full Spectrum Lighting, Color Temperature and Color Rendering, Quality Vs. Quantity and T12’s, T8’s, or T5’s. She also provides some very useful links to more sites discussing lighting
• Still in the dark about art studio lighting considers the pros and cons of different options for lighting a studio
  
• Carol Marine (Carol Marine's Painting a Day ) has a good tip about how to keep your paint brushes flat
• For those of you who take photographs - you'll probably find that this Lifehacker post very useful - David Pogue's Best Photography Tricks (and Ours)

Websites, webware and blogging

• cnet news did a review of
  
• the online threats to consumers in relation to their personal data and finances and scams exploiting the economic downturn - Scams up, but big Net attack averted
• holiday e-retail satisfaction rankings
  
• Lifehacker came up with the Top 10 Ways to Lock Down Your Data

• Seth Godin (Seth's Blog) had a post about A year's worth of popular posts
• (which is where I got my idea for Plus if you want to know Who is Seth Godin?
• Seth's post got me thinking......so I checked out what were Making A Mark - popular posts in 2008
• Which yesterday led to......How to find out what are the most popular posts on your blog which explains how to put Google Analytics on your blog
• Meanwhile Etsy has announced that it is working with Google Analytics to provide more detailed analytics about traffic to Etsy sellers

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

Michelle Burnett Art Studio highlighted the scope to turn an image of yours into a museum picture.

She found the 'concept' in Five Values and "Air" In The Shadows by Marian Fortunati

How to find out what are the most popular posts on your blog

How to find out what are the most popular posts on your blog by putting Google Analytics to your blog. On Wednesday I highlighted what were some of the most popular posts on Making A Mark in 2008. I was able to do this using Google Analytics which then prompted a number of requests for me to tell people how to get Google Analytics for a blog.

Cosmo - A study for his SOFA portrait
11" x 8, pencil
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

First off I only know how to do this for Blogger (and my two principal websites). I'm sure it's possible for other types of blogging webware but can't say for sure how to do this (perhaps others could comment?). It really depends on whether or not you can access the html for your template.

If you're the sort of person who likes to have the instructions printed out and sitting next to you while you try to do something, I've produced a guide (pdf file) which you can download for free and print out.

Making A Mark Guide - Installing Google Analytics on your Blog is now available and is also listed on the website page for Making A Mark Publications.

How to get Google Analytics on your blog

First things first - access and awareness. You'll need a Google Account and you need to know a very little about what Google Analytics is.

• To access Google Analytics you'll need to get a Google Account - which is a stage which all Blogger owners can miss out as you've already got one!

Google Analytics is free to everyone, whether you are an advertiser, publisher or site owner.

• This is the Google Analytics site - for those using google.com and for those using google.co.uk. Both provide an explanation of features and a tour. Don't be put off! Analytics is actually designed for websites which are a great deal more complex than a blog and is not as user-friendly as it could. It took me a long time to get round to getting to grips with Analytics and that's because it appears to be far from simple. What Google ideally needs to do is create a cutdown version for Bloggers. At the moment it's a bit like being confronted with the whole of Photoshop when all you want is PS Elements - just look at this! You can take the tour (but please bear in mind my comment about Photoshop). However, the good news is that if you've ever inserted html code into the template then you should be able to do this.
  
• This is the Google Analytics Help Centre - always a good place to start! We're now going to look at sign-up and installation
• Note that the Blogger Help Centre is completely unhelpful! This is how Blogger tells you to install Google Analytics (!) Like I said - Google hasn't got its head around the idea of a simple front end!
  

Signing up for Google Analytics (and signing in)

OK - once you've got the Google Account you need to go to 'My Account' when in the Google Browser view and click on Analytics - then you need to sign up for Analytics. Alternatively access it via http://www.google.com/analytics/en-GB/ (The access site will vary depending on your country. Another sign-up site is or http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html . Check what it says in the Help Centre relevant to your country).

To create an Analytics account:

1. Visit http://www.google.com/analytic/en-GB/s.
2. Enter your Google Account email and password and click Sign In. If you don't have a Google Account, click Sign up now to create one.
3. Click Sign Up.
4. Enter your Website's URL, making sure to select either http:// or https:// from the drop-down list. Enter a nickname for this account in the Account Name field and then, click Continue.
5. Enter your contact information and click Continue.
6. Read the Google Analytics Terms of Service. If you agree to these terms, select the Yes tick box and click Create New Account to continue.

Reference: Step 1 - Create a Google Analytics account

For the nickname, I suggest you use the name you call your blog (as opposed to whatever it's official title is). If you've only got one blog then 'my blog' is just fine!

Installation of Google Analytics

The Google Help Centre has an Installation Guide which provides a series of steps for moving on to the next step. The following are from the UK site

• Step 2 - Configure your profile I entered the URL for my blog (makingamark.blogspot.com), the country, the timezone and ignored the rest. I think you are automatically added as the Administrator
  
• Step 3 - Edit the tracking code for custom website setups - my recollection is that there is no need for Blogger people to edit the tracking code
• Step 4 - Add the tracking code to your pages Now this is the bit where it gets tricky - but only as tricky as anything else where you need to add in an html snippet of code. You now need to add in the Google Analytics code to the Blogger template you're using. You MUST insert the code which is specific to your profile. Read this first - then I'll tell you how easy it is!
  

Google Analytics only tracks pages that contain the Google Analytics tracking code. You will need to add this code to each page of your site, either manually or through the use of includes or other methods.

To access your tracking code:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. From the Analytics Settings page, find the profile for which you would like to retrieve the tracking code. Please note that tracking codes are profile specific.
3. From that profile's Settings column, click Edit.
4. At the top right of the Main Website Profile Information box, click Check Status.
5. Your tracking code can be copied and pasted from the text box in the Instructions for adding tracking section.

Basic installation Copy and paste the code segment into the bottom of your content, immediately before the body tag of each page that you are planning to track. If you use a common include or template, you can enter it there.

(Note refer to the step 4 page for correct quoting of the html code - which won't appear correctly in this blog post)

• Essentially in Blogger you now need to go to Layout and then you need to click the 'edit html' tab. Now is not the time to go and make a cup of coffee or answer the phone. Be focused while you've got this tab on screen to avoid doing anything silly which makes your blog 'look' go bonkers. You do NOT need to expand widgets. Instead scroll carefully right down to the very end of the html code where you will see the the end "body" code. Copy the Analytics code and then insert it just before this tag. In my template it says it comes just after the "end outer-wrapper" note. (Note refer to the step 4 page for correct quoting of the html code - which won't appear correctly in this blog post) Now save your template (just below - the orange button). There's no point in doing a preview - you won't see anything.
• ....and that's it! Google Analytics will begin collecting traffic data. The data will be displayed in your reports within 24 hours.

If you can access the html code and do something similiar in other website or blogging webware then you can insert it on those as well.

How to find out what are the most popular posts on your blog

Now obviously Google Analytics can't tell you which are your most popular posts until you've generated some data so I'd suggest you make a note in your calendar of a date - like the end of the month - when you're going to take a look to see which ones did the best at attracting traffic to your site.

What follows is what you need to identify your most popular posts:

1. In the Overview screen - click on 'view report' (to the right of your blog URL)
2. In the Dashboard view - click on 'Content' in the menu
   
3. View the Top Content (bottom left) - click on full report
4. In View Report - go to the top right of the screen where it shows you the dates for the period under review. Click the arrow icon and it will reveal a calendar
5. Now define the date range for under review. You need to set a start date and an end date and then click 'apply'. Your start date can be any date AFTER your Google Account started. If I put in the date that my blog started I get a flatline on the chart up to the date when my Google Analytics Account started and I put the code on my blog.
6. You can then view the most popular posts in order of popularity. The table shows: the number of page views; unique page views; time of the page and the percentage who exited the blog after reading that post.
   
7. I took a look at the results for the last week this morning. In the last week all the top posts kept people on my blog for at least 3 minutes. The post which kept people on the blog longest was Making A Mark in 2009 - The Plan. Blogging Art in 2008 - The Making A Mark Awards (Part One) post had the lowest bounce rate and was very successful at keeping people on the blog (ie it made visitors want to read more).
   

Support

Do let me know if you find any of the above puzzling and I'll try to explain better - however I'm afraid I can't offer to do a 'handhold' on this one.

For those who now want to know more about Google Analytics here is a summary of the free support and other free resources

• Support
• Help Center
• Resources
• Conversion University
• Google Analytics Group
• Official Google Analytics Blog

Note:

1. I normally do studies before committing to the feline artwork I do for the Annual Exhibition for SOFA - and that's what this study of Cosmo, my Somali boy cat, is all about.
   
2. You can see more feline art in feline art on this blog and in Feline Art and Catnapping

MAM Poll: How often do you post to your blog?

The Lynn Painter-Stainers Fish (Four fish out of water)
14" x 18", coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I guess many of us are probably full of good intentions about being more organised about our blogging in 2009 - I know I am. So I thought it might be a good idea if I made the first Making A Mark Poll of 2009 about the frequency of our blog posts. I suggest you answer it on the basis of past practice rather than good intentions!

There's a huge variation in the frequency of posting amongst art blogs - and there is no right answer - it's whatever works for you. This poll is to give:

• new bloggers an idea about how often people post and
  
• more mature bloggers an idea about how their frequency compares to everybody else.

So - excluding your normal breaks/holidays - how often do YOU post to your blog?

The Making A Mark Poll for January can be found in the side column (just under the Followers widget) and asks the question How often do you post to your blog? The options are:

• Virtually every day - I'm a real daily painter or a fanatical blogger
• about 5 times a week - I've got to have some time off for real life
• about 2-3 times a week - persistent and regular but not constant
• averages out at once a week - it's too difficult to post more often
• averages out 2-3 times a month - I'm a minimalist by nature!
• less than once a month - I keep forgetting!
• less than once every three months - my blog has died

Bear in mind that a huge proportion of all blogs (on whatever subject) "die" in the first three months of life - and if you've not posted in the last three months your blog is almost certainly "dead".

You've got a month to vote - the poll close at the end of January and I'll do review the results in a blog post at the beginning of February when I will also post a new poll. I have some ideas in mind but if you'd like to make any suggestions leave a comment below.

You can also see the first version of this poll on my squidoo information site Blogging for Artists - Resources for Artists - but please don't look at the results until you've voted in the January Making A Mark Poll on this blog! :)

NOTES:

1. For an explanation about the drawing at the top see my post on the Watermarks blog - Four fish out of water
2. I wrote this blog post before I went to bed and scheduled it to post in the morning! Day 1 of the new regime for blogging gets a tick!
   

Making A Mark in 2009 - The Plan

The Ecology Park Pond, 28th December 2008 #1
14" x 10", coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Goals are good for moving forward - BUT too many goals can leave you spinning!

Principles are great for keeping yourself on track as the world about you changes - IF you can work out what works for you.

Themes help you to see connections between different activities - but too many themes bring confusion rather than clarification.

Specific outputs and deadlines help to keep people focused on what needs to be done. You can use them to help yourself achieve what you want to be and do - BUT only if all your tasks, outputs and deadlines continue to be relevant in an ever-changing world.

...and the purpose of the above?

In 2009 my Plan involves

• principles - the way I want to be
• goals - what I want to achieve
  
• themes - how I will connect activities
  
• activities - what I will be doing
  

This year I'll have much less of a focus on specific outputs and much more emphasis on the artwork. This plan is more a statement of the way I will work rather than a whizzy business plan with 'to do' lists. The latter is what I used to do - but I'm really not at all interested in developing the business side of my art right now. Right now I'm much more interested in developing my art and its identity and style!

THE PRINCIPLES

Here are a few principles I subscribe too which will inform my plan for 2009.

I'm expressing them in an idiomatic way because that makes them easier to remember! None of them are obviously about art - but all are applicable to enjoying art and making art. I might just write a bit more about them on this blog!

1. Life is too short - once you're the wrong side of 50 it seems to me it's important to focus on what makes your life more satisfying and on what you want to do with the rest of your life - although I'm not planning on writing 1001 things I must do with my art before I die anytime soon! However I'd much rather read art books than iron sheets! It's not an excuse for being selfish - but it's a jolly good reason to avoid wasting time on unproductive endeavours and to learn how to walk away from things which aren't working.
2. The journey is the reward. Which is a variation on the notion that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. I don't need to be the best there is - I do need to get satisfaction from the process of getting better at doing what I do - even if I experience some frustrations along the way. Recognising good work along the way (milestones) is good too.
   
3. The original and the best. I'm not very interested in duplicating other people's work and I aim to be an original rather than a cheap copy! At the same time I think we can all learn from what has gone before. I'm certainly not averse to understanding how artists have used other artists' work to develop their own. It's finding your own interpretation - the twist - which is the real challenge.
   
4. Variety is the spice of life! I've never been good at doing just one thing or having just one role. There's a number of interesting aspects to this principle which are very applicable to art. Such as
   
1. A change is as good as a rest.
2. What marks people out is what makes them different from the rest.
   
5. There are no shortcuts! For me shortcuts are for keyboards rather than artwork. You become more efficient and effective at producing art through reiteration and refinement and changing the way you do things. You've got to put in the hours.
   
6. 'Good enough' is good enough. This might seem contradictory to the above - whereas in my view it's actually the other side of the coin. You've got to put in the hours AND know when to stop. An attitude of perfectionism can be very limiting - whereas practice makes perfect. I'd rather accept that not everything I do is going to be perfect. I'd rather try and get better by practising and trying again than stay stuck trying to make one piece perfect. In my experience, the best artwork just 'happens' in a very simple and fluid - and sometimes fast - way following the development of ideas and the acquisition of skills.
   
7. What goes around comes around. You get out what you put in. You get back what you give out. You get what you deserve. We create our own realities.

If you've got a principle which informs how you tackle your life and your art why not share it by leaving a comment below.

MY GOALS FOR 2009

1. LEARNING: To look at and learn more about art which I find stimulating. I'm not trying to understand all art. I don't mind if the stimulation is to the eye, brain or heart. I just want to know more about the art which arouses a response in me.
2. DOING: To make art worth making. I'm more interested in doing better than doing more of the same. I'd like to be able to get what's in my head down on paper! I'd like to get past the feeling that I can't start because it won't be good enough - I know I have to start somewhere!
   
3. SHARING: To celebrate what's good in art and to share it with others - whether it's art, artists, art techniques or art supplies. This is a major theme of my life. It's who I am and what I like to do. Sharing has many facets
   
4. SHOWING: To show artwork because it merits display rather than because it's the thing to do. I much prefer seeing exhibitions to submitting work to them!
   
5. SELLING: To gear selling activity to income targets and the realities of the marketplace. Right now this means that this is a low priority. Picking up on the principle of variety being the spice of life but too many genres makes an artistic identity confusing - I need to try and identify (say) three main genres to pursue.

THEMES FOR 2009

My activities will be linked to themes in 2009. These have been influenced by what I learned or observed in 2008.

Mixed Media

I keep seeing brushwork in my visual (mental) interpretations of how my work will develop. Questions I need to provide an answer to include:

• Could my liking for dry media be the reason why I'm resisting getting started on making new work?
• Do I need to buy new brushes?
  
• Do I need to do underpaintings?

The Face, the Figure and Female Artists
These are facts I 'discovered' in 2008

• there's a lot of interesting female artists around - in the past and the present
  
• female portrait artists do not get a lot of 'formal' recognition in the UK
• I do a class on 'drawing a head' but never submit drawings of people to exhibitions
  
• I include figures (without faces) in my sketches all the time - but never in my 'worked up' drawings
• people are very interested in learning how how to sketch people - and I could be tempted to develop a workshop and instruction book.
  

Flowers
I've been photographing an awful lot of flowers for the last two years and use it to learn more about a subject. I'm very drawn to

• macro pictures which abstract the flower from conventional reality. What I like are the shapes, planes, patterns and colour fields within the petals, sepals and leaves.
• the patterns in cacti and succulents continue to absorb me
  
• developing a series of images which fit together in conceptual terms and on a screen or a wall.
  

Places
I like to produce a sketch or a drawing that has a clear sense of "place".

• When I make a drawing of a place as it is today, besides the conventional artistic considerations, I also like to try and understand the place, what it represents and why it looks the way it does. In a way I'm trying to see the story of the landscape behind the surface of what I can see.
• I draw a lot more water than I realised!
• I want to develop a series of drawings representing a journey - through space or time.

Communities of Interest
Non corporate communities of interest are emerging as a way of people working on specific subject matter

• Watermarks as a community - within the blog and the ning community - provides a good enviroment for discussing different perspectives on making art. It's provided the stimulation for a complete new series of works - and I've already finished two!

Blogging
I need to blog less - but not a lot less. It feels very creative to me and the blog posts often help me find useful information and sort out problems I'm trying to tackle.

• I need to change the time I write my blog posts so I get more time to make art when the light is good. A task and finish approach with bedtime as the deadline for the first draft might work....with a quick edit in the morning.
  
• I'd like to achieve 500,000 visitors by the end of June 2008.
  

Writing and Workshops
I see a logical connection between workshops and writing. I'm more and more convinced that I do want to write at length - what do you mean I write long enough already? ;) - and want to go down the self-publishing route - not least because I expect there to be some shake-outs on the publishing front during the recession and because there's greater scope for flexibility. I've identified that an awful lot of people would like me to expand on how to sketch people - see 10 Tips for How to Sketch People - so this looks like a good topic for a possible workshop (maybe in London) and guide.

ACTIVITIES IN 2009

Learning
I enjoy learning. I will continue my personal development as an artist AND as a person who appreciates art and likes looking at it. This will involve:

• Learning more about art and artists - past and present - and in particular female artists.
  
• I'm planning a series of interviews with female contemporary artists - hopefully one each month. One of them will be with Margaret Dyer, the artist whose work was voted best artwork on a blog in 2009
  
• I look so I can see. I will continue to read art books and go to as many exhibitions as possible
• I'll also be write reviews of both books and exhibitions as I find doing this always makes me look a lot more carefully and think much more about what I'm seeing and reading.
  

Doing
After a fairly intense period of reading, looking and learning I'm aiming to produce more art in 2009. I'm aiming to develop and refine my style so that it develops the characteristics of art I like in 2009.

• Work may well start life as an underpainting in acrylic, watercolour, ink or gouache (guess who'll be experimenting in 2009!). It's very likely to be covered with dry media.
  
• I particularly enjoy looking at and producing 'flat' areas which have lots of glazes produced using optical hatching and I suspect this might start influencing the design and compositions of work I produce.
• Work will be figurative but with an element of abstraction.
• New work will include drawings of places with people. This will be a developed version of the very many sketches I do which involve people. The places may well be identifiable but the people won't be.
• I'll be developing a series of drawings of the Ecology Park Pond over the course of a year. This isn't a 365 day a year series - but I do want to develop a series which reflects a single place at different times of day and in different seasons. You can see the first one at the top of this post.
  
• I'm hoping to develop a series of drawings of the Thames but haven't yet worked out how to tackle this. Sketches for it will be posted on Travels with a sketchbook (as will sketches of the pond and people and places).
  
• I want to settle on a common and consistent format for the flower drawings.
  
• I want to try drawing on gesso boards.
• I want to find a baren and to see if my dodgy hand can cope with lino cuts.
• I'll continue to develop my drawings in pen and ink - partly as an aid to focus and concentration in drawing from life.
  

Sharing
There will be a continuing focus on developing how I can share what I learn and learning from others who share what they do. I'll be sharing information by:

• writing Making A Mark Guides
  
• reviewing exhibitions
• writing book reviews
• writing blog posts about artists and developing resources for art lovers information sites
• writing blog posts about media and reviews of art materials and developing resources for artists information sites
• writing about art business, the art economy and blogging for artists - and developing associated guides and information sites
  
• highlighting - in 'who's made a mark this week' - all the other good people who share their knowledge, skills and information on their art blogs

I'll also continue to contribute to group blogs 'Urban Sketchers' and 'Watermarks'. If you're not already reading Watermarks, can I commend the level of discussion which has started about different approaches to making art.

Showing
I aim to participate in a limited number of exhibitions - to be decided

• I'm going to review past drawings and/or produce some drawing of people which I'm happy about submitting for exhibition.
• I'm going to produce an exhibition schedule with all the dates so I can avoid missing deadlines!
  

Selling
This will continue to have a low priority - but I may just start an Etsy store and/or publish a blog with work for sale. However the production/distribution process needs to be efficient. Plus I need to purchase a new scanner so that I can get more images set up for prints - mines developed a red line!

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

I'm enjoying reading everybody else's plans for 2009 - and looking forward to those which have still to be posted. Ones I've particularly enjoyed so far are those produced by

• Tracy Helgeson - My Road Map for 2009
• Jeanette Jobson - 2009 - The Three 'Ps'
• Robyn Sinclair - Outperforming dog - which will take some beating when it comes to being focused and succinct!