The definitive "50 works of art to see before you die"

Claude Monet: Reflets verts (Green reflections)
two panels: 200 x 425 cm (78 inches x 167 inches)
Musee de l'Orangerie

The final list of 50 works of art to see before you die, as suggested and promoted by readers of the Guardian Online Art and Architecture Blog was published just before Christmas. However I forgot to post it on the blog then so here it is now!

It's an interesting list and the debate which contributed to how it was arrived is fascianting reading - see the links below and then see what you think.

I was particularly pleased that Monet's Nymphéas at the Musee de l'Orangerie in Paris were included. They were missing from the initial list and yet they're the only art 'experience' which has ever totally overwhelmed me on seeing them for the first time.

If you are ever in Paris, a visit to see the eight paintings comes highly recommended by me - especially now that you can as the museum they are housed in has at long last opened again. You can read a ViaMichelin article here about how the original layout of the Musee de l'Orangerie and the environment for the Nymphéas has been restored (it only took 6 years!). Robert Genn (The Painters Keys) has also commented on his recent experience of visiting the Nymphéas again and includes the interactive views of the images of all 8 paintings.

Computer Update: Getting there slowly........very slowly! The laptop does not like my camera and refuses to have anything to do with it. And when I came to open the Compact Flash reader I bought from PC World I realised that somebody had got there before me and removed the USB cable, driver and quick-start guide! However, the laptop does like the printer but somehow doesn't want to scan in the same way..........I'm being very calm(!) and looking at chocolate.

Links

The top 50:
The following links provide:

• November 3rd: The initial blog post with a draft list and debate
  
• November 14th: More comments and more debate
• November 20th: Yet more discussion.....and more debate
• a selection of visual highlights from the final list
  
• Making A Mark: Which works of art matter the most to you.
  

Monet's Nymphéas:

• The Musee de l'Orangerie (French)
• Les Nymphéas an interactive site
  
• "The Musée de l'Orangerie: a light-filled setting for Monet's Nymphéas" (By Emmanuel Tresmontant / Via Michelin)
• "The Other Eye" (Robert Genn / The Painter's Keys)
  

It never rains but it snows

Just to keep things in perspective there could be worse things than my computer throwing a wobbly!

These photos are from fellow Fine Line Artist -Gord Leverton in Ontario, Canada. I've left out the one which shows how much driveway he had to shovel to get cars out of snowdrifts and able to access the road! I gather the trick is to have a particular sort of bendy shovel(?).

In the meantime, my ad hoc mid term prize for the best "we're snowed in and not going anywhere fast" blog photos of the latest big snow event in North America goes to the "Last snow photos - I promise" blog post by Tracy Helgeson (in New York State) who is normally displaying very nice colourist oils on panels. (Very nice - do take a look at more of Works by Tracy Helgeson)

We had a big thing about ten days ago. It actually snowed in the middle of London where I live and we had a good two inches and about an inch of it actually stayed until the next day. Of course everything stopped / schools closed / trains were late / people didn't turn up for work! OK - it was a little bit worse out of London but not a lot. However, I'm sure that winter weather generally was a lot worse when I was a child and yet schools stayed open and people still went to work. North America only seems to have 'snow days' when the snow is rather heavier than anything we experience. So what's happening in the UK - whatever has happened to 'getting on with it'? Have we maybe just got too used to having a more comfortable life?

Anyway - back to the computer. I eventually calmed down after the computer announced that Windows had a corrupt file and needed to be repaired after consuming two thirds of the box of chocolates which "He who must not be bored while I sketch" gave me for Valentines Day - along with an exceptionally nice meal - and I'm just pacing myself through getting it sorted. As in "I'm not worried" said in a convincing tone. Getting the big computer fixed is going to take some time. I feel like Captain Oates in the Antarctic - to paraphrase "It's gone out.........and it may be some time".

I now have a working laptop which is fully loaded and updated with latest security software but not a lot of space to load new software and drivers - and I haven't yet been able to link up the printer or the scanner or the back up drive or a (new) USB hub to run the (new) Compact Flash reader. I can't download photos from the camera and can't scan anything so I'm minus pics for the time being except for those that I can get which are already uploaded to my Flickr account (my back-up, back-up image archive!). I suspect there may be quite a bit more on Van Gogh for the next few posts while I work out how to do a barebones installation of necessary software to get things sorted! ;)

...........and finally, I must remember to buy computer mags more often. Have you all read about the backward compatability issues of Windows Vista?

Postcard from Provence: two years on

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

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. His work has become so familiar to me that I can now spot a PfP subject anytime one presents itself!

Julian's blog has notched up just short of 250,000 visits in the last two years. If you're not familiar with Julian's blog and how it came about and the impact it has had then take a look at the mentions he's had in my blog over the last year or so (see the links at the end of this post) and then turn to the press coverage - on the front page of Postcard from Provence (see quote below).

Shiftinglight Elsewhere...

• NYTimes, 23 Feb 2006
• Yahoo Picks, 16 April 2006
• USA Today, 23 Aug 2006
• NYTimes, 31 Aug 2006
• Pajama Market, Sept 2006
• Lines and Colors, 16 Nov 2006
• Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Jan 2007
• KTNV Las Vegas News, Jan 2007

You can sign up to get a postcard in your inbox here. And watch out for some very interesting news in the near future.................

Happy Birthday Julian and congratulations on all that you and Ruth have achieved in the last two years - that oyster really did turn out to have a pearl!

Links:

• Postcard from Provence
• Making A Mark: Links to artist weblogs and websites 22 January 2006
• Making A Mark: Postcard from Provence 21 February 2006
• Making A Mark: Why artists should blog (Part 2) - the success of painting a day blogs 24 Augsut 2006
• 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 won the "Tales from the Frontline" Mention in Dispatches award for being my favourite blog by somebody who lives with an artist).

Technorati tags: art, art blogs, art business, art marketing, art websites, artist weblogs art marketing daily painter, daily painting, daily paintings, painting

After Van Gogh: Drawing the Languedoc Landscape

St Domenic's View from Fanjeaux

11" x 14" pen and ink on hot press paper
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Fanjeaux is located west of Carcassonne, in the French département of Aude, a part of the ancient Languedoc province and the present-day Languedoc-Roussillon région. I was told that St Dominic (Dominic De Guzmán ) saw a comet from the 'promenade' place in Fanjeaux where I sketched this view originally. This is the Google Map link for where I was and this is what the local Carcasonne Tourism Information website says

FANJEAUX : After taking the sighting of a comet as the sign of God, St Dominic decided to build a monastery for the cathar women returning to Catholicism.

Apparently he has been named as the Patron Saint of Astronomers - which is presumably connected.

Anyway back to drawing and Van Gogh! One of the key tenets of the Dominicans is to find truth whereever it lay - maybe a view that Van Gogh would have sympathy with?

My original sketch was done inside my hire car as the wind made doing anything outside virtually impossible. I think we were having a slightly early taste of the Mistral. (The orginal thumbnail sketch and colour sketch can be seen in my post on 15th February last year - More Mistral Sketching from the car). When I checked the colour sketch against the photograph I took at the same time I saw that I had distorted the perspective! This time I allowed myself to work from the photograph - albeit I still eyeballed it. I find perspective starts to fall into place as soon as I get a frame round a view - as Van Gogh may well have found with his perspective finder. Anyway, the latest version was drawn in pencil first (see below)


.....and then I started to ink in using what I thought were VG marks! On reflection, I was using a Roting Art Pen with an extra fine nib and I don't this helped particularly with achieving VG type marks. The pen and ink sketch at the top certainly looks more me than it does Van Gogh. However, his drawing style is in no way easy to emulate - it's very sophisticated, stylised and fluent. However it was interesting to try making more stylised marks and I'm going to get my reed pen out next time. When I finally get this drawing sorted it's destined for a place in my Views and Vistas Gallery on my website.

PS I thought I'd lost this post when my computer died. Fortunately since my blog, website and e-mail are all web-based it was less of a nightmare than it might have been! I'll tell you more later............

Links:

• Wikipedia - St Domenic
• Wikipedia - Prouille
• Making a Mark: More Mistral Sketching from the car 15 February 2006
  
• Making a Mark: Renaissance Master Class 22 October 2006
  
• Pastels and Pencils - Views and Vistas Gallery

Technorati tags: art, drawing , Vincent Van Gogh

A hiccup

My main computer threw a wobbly last night and again this morning and I need to get it sorted. I'll be posting again as soon as I've got the fixing process underway. Back soon!