Review: Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012

Jordi Ruiz Cirera
with Margarita Teichroeb in the background

Spanish reportage photographer Jordi Ruiz Cirera (Found on the Road) has won the £12,000 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 with his  photograph of Margarita Teichroeb.

28 year old Jorge is Spanish and has been based in London ever since he came here to do his MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication.

His photograph is one of a series (Menonos) of photographic portraits of the Mennonite community in Bolivia. This series was developed as a reportage project for his MA degree.  The photo was taken on a digital 35mm Canon 5D mkII, using only available light.

I asked him why he chose this particular photograph of Margarita and he told me because it was his favourite photograph of all the ones he had taken (some 30 or so).  He took her picture at the home she shares with her mother and sister in the Swift Current Colony in Bolivia.As a community, the Menonites live with no cars, telephones, electricity or modern utilities and consequently photography is not a normal part of their lives, is usually forbidden and hence most were very awkward and often looked away from the camera.  In this photograph, she sits centre stage and looks directly at the camera - although her shyness comes across with the hand across her mouth and through the expression in her eyes.

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012
First Prize: Margarita Teichroeb
© Jordi Ruiz Cirera

The reason I like the photograph is that for me it tells a story of a person just in that look.  There is both context and character and a backstory plus an overwhelming sense of a real person rather than just an interesting image.

Jorge is currently employed as Photographer in Residence on a year long commission for Historic Royal Palaces.  This year he also won a Deutsche Bank Award in Photography with the University of the Arts London this year.  He plans to continue his career in documentary and reportage photography.

The Prizewinning Photographers

NEW! The Derwent Art Prize - for pencil art

Derwent Pencils today announced The Derwent Art Prize - a brand new art prize for artists working in pencil.  The winner will receive £5,000 so I expect this new art competition may well generate some considerable interest amongst pencil artists working with coloured pencils, water-soluble pencils, pastel pencils, graphite or charcoal.

I think it's a brilliant idea and recommend all those who draw to take a close look at the details.

The Derwent Art Prize

Aim of the Competition

The aim of the Prize is to reward excellence through showcasing the very best international works created in pencil.

Inaugural Exhibition

It's expected that some 80 works will be selected for the exhibition - which will then be displayed in three different ways

POLL #2: Best professional watercolour paints

The Bad News: My Blogger Poll (see POLL: Which are the best artist-quality watercolour paints?) refuses to behave and has lost all its votes!  Apparently it's a Blogger problem and there's no solution on the horizon.

The Good News: I've resurrected the poll on a separate "resources for artists" site which I'd intended to construct during the course of this month.

Instead I've had to do the speedy version and two days and a lot of work later it's very nearly complete.

The aim of the website is to provide a comprehensive compendium about all current professional grade watercolour paints for artists.  Click the link below to take a look.

Which is the best brand of watercolour paint for artists?
Do you want to know about: * which is the best brand of professional grade watercolour paints for artists? * the colour range and characteristics of different brand of artist-quality watercolour paint?

More Good News: The second version of the Poll has a more complete range of professional grade watercolours for artists - I'd forgotten one or two which I did know about (and David this time Grumbacher is included!) and have found one or two more which I didn't know anything at all about!

In addition, the website provides a module for each brand of watercolour paint (not quite complete as yet - it's taken a lot longer than I expected to find all the links!).  This provides:

• Links to all the manufacturers sites, and colour charts and health and safety data where available
• A summary of the colours available - using the same format for all the different brands which makes it easier to see how the ranges vary
• Highlights reviews of the different paints

I'd be very happy to add in any reviews which people have done on their blogs in the past and which i've not yet found

Please vote (again)!

If those people who have already voted - and their vote disappeared - could possibly vote again I'd be absolutely delighted!  These are the links to the two polls

• POLL: Which are the best artist-quality watercolour paints?
• POLL: How many different brands of watercolour paint have you tried?

Many thanks for all your comments about different watercolour paints - they've been great You can also submit comments on the poll on the website.

I'll be reporting on the result at the end of the month.  However as I've now got it set up on a separate site I'll keep it running there for at least a year and will report back again towards the end of 2013 as to how the different brands fared.

[NOTE: We're on the last leg of the visit from the Australian contingent and there will be no "who's made a mark this week?"  Tomorrow Westminster Abbey and the National Portrait Gallery followed by a trip to the airport!]

More about watercolour painting:

• The Best Books about Watercolour Painting
• Making A Mark - Which are the best art books about watercolour painting? (23 March 2010)

Who painted this? #2

Last week there was a lot of interest in Who painted this #1 - and the answer is at the end of this post.  Let's see how you all do with #2.

Who painted this? #2

Who painted this? #2 (and the rest!)

As you might expect, a lot of the paintings in this occasional series are going to be of subject matter I like by painters I like!

I'm expecting that some of you might guess the artist pretty quickly - but may struggle with the rest of the information required

If you want to play the game: the rules are:

1. You need to leave your answer as a comment on this blog.  Howls of frustration can also be left.......
2. In your comment, you must tell me ALL of the following:
• the title of the artwork
• the name of the artist
• the date it was created
• the media used
• where it lives now
• how you know all this eg how did you do your search (note 3 below)
3. This is about using brains not technology - so please do not "cheat".  
• PLEASE do NOT use any of the "image matching" technology which exists (eg Chrome or Tineye) - that's just plain lazy! My suspicions will be raised by those who appear to know the answer a bit too quickly!
• You may use Google or any other search engine to search on WORDS in databases of images. 
4. If you're not getting anywhere in the first 24 hours I'll leave a clue as a comment on the post.

The person who in my judgement is the first person to get to the answer by fair means will get a mention in my very popular weekly blog post - along with a link to their website or blog or both.

Who painted this #1 - the answer

For those who didn't check back the answer was Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio.  Websites differ as to its date - but somewhere between 1595 and 1602 would have been OK by me.

The person who guessed it first was Vivienne St Clair (A Painted Postcard).

POLL: Which are the best artist-quality watercolour paints?

One of my most frequent questions when interviewing artists is to ask them what brand of paint they like to use.  That's because I know that other artists would also ask this question if they ever got the chance!

Guess who this paintbox belongs to?

Which are the best watercolour paints for artists?

So the Making A Mark Poll for this month asks you about:

• which are the best watercolour paints in your view.  I'm also having a supplementary poll asking people how many brands they've tried.
• for comments on why you like your favourite watercolour paints

[POLL IS CURRENTLY SUSPENDED AS BLOGGER POLL MODULE NOT WORKING - DROPPING VOTES - I'm working on a fix which should be published later today]

The brands are listed below - in alphabetical order.

Many of you may be unfamiliar with some of them and for that reason I've included the link to the manufacturer's brand site in the name of the paint.

• Art Spectrum Artists Watercolours
• Daler Rowney Artists Watercolours
• Daniel Smith Watercolor Paints
• Da Vinci
• Holbein Artists Watercolor
• Holbein Irodori Antique Watercolor
• Kremer Pigmente Watercolors
• Lukas Aquarell
• Maimeri Blu
• Maimeri Venezia
• M. Graham Watercolor Paints
• Old Holland Classic Watercolours
• Robert Doak’s Concentrated Watercolors
• Royal Talens - Rembrandt
• Royal Talens - Van Gogh
• Schminke Horadam Aquarell
• Sennelier Aquarelle Extra Fine
• St. Petersburg
• Utrecht
• Winsor and Newton Artists Watercolours

You can find the two polls in the right hand column.  The Poll finishes very early on 30th November and the results will be reported shortly afterwards.

Your views

Do please share your views about what you think are the best artists' watercolour paints and why they are your favourites

Do you have just one absolute favourite colour?

More about watercolour painting:

• The Best Books about Watercolour Painting
• Making A Mark - Which are the best art books about watercolour painting? (23 March 2010)

UPDATE

I've created a website arising out of this and another poll and started to document the various brands of watercolour paint.  See for yourself - Which is the best brand of watercolour paint for artists?  This also has a poll about the best brands of watercolour paint.