Feedburner drops its own email subscribers from count

If any of you think your subscriber statistics are looking a little odd this morning, you'd be right. Feedburner appears to have dropped all the people who subscribe to my blog via Feedburner emails from the subscriber count widget (top right)

Funnily enough, if I go into my Feedburner account I've got 852 subscribers (from all sorts of sources) so this is a new one on me - a widget which is completely out of synch with the Feedburner account. Normally when a malfunction occurs they're both in synch.

More importantly, if you didn't get your e-mail yesterday or this morning could you let me know please via a comment in this blog post.

Visual artists and Copyright in the Knowledge Economy

Copyright applies to all art but there can be exceptions. Three questions:

1. In future, might your art be deemed orphaned and not eligible for copyright protection because your ownership data is removed from a digital file?
2. Will we be able to continue to see digital versions of art on the Internet - for free?
3. Will you be able to access great works of art in museums and art galleries for blog posts?
   

You might think these questions are unconnected - but I'm not so sure they are. It all relates to yet more moves in relation to copyright and visual art.

Allium à deux
7" x 5", coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

In the UK, copyright for all art lasts for the life of the creator (author) and another 70 years - so long as the originator can be identified.

Last week the European Commission published a Green Paper Copyright in the Knowledge Economy (pdf file). It starts from the presumption that it has to reconcile the protection of the legitimate interests of the rightholders with the wider goal of access to knowledge. So it starts from the perspective of two admirable aims.

The Green Paper looks at whether existing legislation relating to copyright helps or hinders the creation and transmission of knowledge for the purposes of research, science and education. The Green paper is intended to kick off a debate on the long-term future of copyright policy in these fields. It acknowledges that copyright policy cuts across a number of interests. According to the EU relevant interests involve:

• government policies relating to the marketplace and culture and is also of relevance to
  
• those whose personal/business interests relate to the information society, competition and consumer interests.

Sigificantly the EU, in its introduction, forgets to highlight at the outset that it is also of critical interest to the originator, creator and author of the work which is subject to copyright.

The "public" addressed in this Green Paper comprises scientists, researchers, students and also disabled people or the general public who want to advance their knowledge and educational levels by using the Internet
EU Green Paper - Copyright in the Knowledge Economy

The Green Paper is trying to organise and structure a debate and point to future challenges in fields that have not been a focal point up to now. These are fields such as scientific and scholarly publishing, and the role of libraries, researchers and people with a disability (except it has a very odd notion of disability).

The Green Paper focuses on the exceptions to copyright which are most relevant for the dissemination of knowledge, namely:
– The exception for the benefit of libraries and archives;
– The exception allowing dissemination of works for teaching and research purposes;
– The exception for the benefit of people with a disability;
– A possible exception for user-created content
EU Green Paper - Copyright in the Knowledge Economy

Most importantly - all artists in the European Union should note that this extends the European version of the debate on Orphan Works. It also covers what it refers to as User Created Content - which includes blogs!

A quick review of the Green Paper suggests that the European Commission is certainly not moving fast enough in keeping up with technological developments. Existing practice flouts existing copyright law - while existing law might actually be getting in the way of education and learning - and has effectively been ignored by those operating within the spirit if not the letter of the law.

It also seems to be listening rather too much to be big corporate interests rather than those of individual producers and consumers - and to the music business and librarians rather than artists and the art business.

A move to remedy this situation is indeed welcome - so long as it balances the interests of different parts of the arts and balances the valid interests of the creator, the consumer and the taxpayer as well as any other corporate interest - whether public or private.

Orphan Works

Orphan works are works where the owner cannot be identified. The notion of orphan works is a particular problem in relation to visual works, particularly in relation to digital files of such works as the original signature and identifying marks of the artist can be separated if somebody decides to steal and use it for their commercial profit.

Orphan works as an issue originally arose when the large scale digitisation projects associated with works in libraries and museums - which can include visual works such as art and photographs - highlighted that there was a problem in identifying copyright owners as not all could be found.

My limited understanding of the way in which the orphan works debate has progressed suggests that it is largely being driven by the librarians and museums and the voice of the present day copyright owner of works being created today is notable by its absence. Indeed, the exception which is being discussed is found within the section relating to libraries.

In recent years libraries and other public interest establishments have become increasingly interested not only in preserving (digitising) works but also in making their collections accessible online. If that were to take place, libraries argue, researchers would no longer have to go to the premises of libraries or archives but would easily be able to find and retrieve the required information on the Internet. Also, publishers state that they are digitising their own catalogues with a view to setting up interactive online databases where this material can be easily retrieved from the user's desktop. These services require payment of a subscription fee.
Summary introduction to EU Green Paper - Copyright in the Knowledge Economy - section 3.1 Exceptions for libraries and archives

The Orphan Works issue is therefore a nuisance for libraries - and obviously needs to be addressed.

However the concern in Europe must be that we don't get a repeat of the proposals in the USA which effectively ignore the rights and economic interests of visual artists, illustrators, photographers and others. All originators need to be safeguarded from those who are likely to ignore or only pay lip service to legal requirements.

The existing proposals also looks very like it might be more about creating an income opportunity for museums and art galleries as opposed to promoting the education and learning of all those interested in art. (Are you going to be willing to pay a fee every time you want to access the digital archives of every museum and art gallery? Can this proposal be really serious?)

While there is undoubtedly a problem with making orphan works available for use, I've yet to see a paper or bill (such as those which are currently extant in the USA) which have adequately addressed theft of works for commercial gain.

While approaches to this issue differ, the proposed solutions are mostly based on a common principle; a user has to perform a reasonable search in order to try to identify or locate the rightholder(s).
EU Green Paper - Copyright in the Knowledge Economy - Section 3.1.3. Orphan Works

I understand that in the USA it's proposed that the issue of search will be addressed by making all originators register their works - as opposed to all those who use allegedly orphan works registering their commercial work for scrutiny and flagging up ownership.

If, as this Green Paper suggests, it's possible for an exemption on orphan works to be restricted solely to libraries and other public interest establishments why on earth has the development of law on orphan works in the USA created such an enormous fuss?

The Green Paper requests comments in response to a plethora of questions relating to any variation to existing rights relating to reproduction which are enjoyed by libraries and museums.

Disabled Access

In my opinion, the disability access section is completely ludicrous and represents an incredibly impoverished notion of both disability and access. I suggest all those who have a disability relating to mobility take a close look to see what I mean! At the same time the Commission wants a web that is better enabled for the disabled - but yet again views disability purely in terms of vision or ability to use a mouse.

Dissemination of works for teaching and research purposes

Both teachers and students increasingly rely on digital technology to access or disseminate teaching materials. The use of network-based learning accounts at present for a significant part of regular curricular activities. While dissemination of study materials through online networks can have a beneficial effect on the quality of European education and research, it may also carry a risk of copyright infringement where the digitization and/or making available of copies of research and study materials are covered by copyright.

The public interest exception for teaching and research purposes was designed to reconcile the legitimate interests of the rightholders with the wider goal of access to knowledge.

This section seeks to highlight another ridiculous legal situation which challenges learning outside places in which copyright works are situated. There are many differences between the law in different countries. Few countries recognise that:

• learning with educational institutions now frequently takes the form of distance learning
• learning often takes place outside libraries educational institutions via networks
  
• learning does not only take place under the auspices of educational institutions - and access for educational purposes needs to be available to all those seeking to learn via digital resources.
  

I can't quite see see how existing legislation across different countries which relates 'fair use' only to institutions can possibly be reconciled with the concept and basic philosophy of the 'fair use' exemption - there is an obvious need for change and clarity.

User Created Content

Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, podcasts, wiki, or video sharing, enable users easily to create and share text, videos or pictures, and to play a more active and collaborative role in content creation and knowledge dissemination...........user-created content was defined as "content made publicly available over the Internet, which reflects a certain amount of creative effort, and which is created outside of professional routines and practices
EU Green Paper - Copyright in the Knowledge Economy - Section 3.4 User Content

The Green Paper calls for comment in relation to two specific questions, namely:

• (24) Should there be more precise rules regarding what acts end users can or cannot do when making use of materials protected by copyright?
• (25) Should an exception for user-created content be introduced into the Directive?

I'd definitely like to see the European Commission and the UK Government putting a bit more effort into keeping up with the ways that digital technology is transforming communication in the online world. I don't want to see it siding with big business interests so much as getting onside with individual consumers who also want to be creative and to learn more about the wealth of information that is available.

Speaking personally, I'd like to see a priority given to making MORE images available for digital educational and online use - as opposed to transferring very large print-ready images to digital libraries which assume the only use is a commercial print one - as one major art museum has just done. The choice now is between thumbnails which are of no use for viewing online and could not be printed and very large files which attract a fee. If I was the Minister for Culture, I'd be telling them that they were not getting any more government grants for supporting cultural artifacts until the education of the country's students and all those wishing to learn more was suitably protected!

I'm off to the UK government's new initiative Show Us A Better Way [ http://showusabetterway.com/ ] to make a suggestion..............

Call for comments

The Green Paper is calling for comments and seeks views on whether:

• the exhaustive list of exceptions under the Directive achieves "a fair balance of rights and interests between […] the different categories of rightholders and users"
• the proposals are in line with a rapidly changing environment where technologies and social and cultural practices are constantly challenging the balance achieved in the law and new
  market players, such as search engines, seek to apply these changes to new business models.

Answers and comments, which may cover all or only a limited number of the above issues, should reach the following address by 30 November 2008.
markt-d1@ec.europa.eu.

I'm trying to formulate a view and an initial draft reads something like this:

• orphan work status can automatically be assumed for all works where there is no identified owner AND where the work is obviously older than the average age of an adult plus 70 years (ie the current period of copyright enjoyed by all legitimate and identifiable copyright owners). All works older than that are automatically out of copyright. This approach would automatically means that pretty much all existing photographs still enjoy copyright status and cannot be used without permission.
  
• If the age of an orphan work is known to be within a copyright period then it may be used for any non-commercial work which is associated with research, science, education and teaching irrespective of whether or not that knowledge-oriented use was being undertaken by recognised seats of learning (otherwise you rule out all self-directed and distance learning).
  
• Places which house orphan works can charge for print-ready quality files only - and not for access to a database.
• recognition should be given to the idea that learning does not only take place in educational institutions
• museums and art galleries should be obliged to make digital files suitable for online viewing to all those interested in learning more about art.
  
• The owner of all digital files which are apparently anonymous (orphans) must be able to point to the source of the original file and the location of the original document - in other words they must articulate and credit sources.
  
• Anybody seeking to use orphan works for commercial gain and profit must register that work and pay over a proportion of profits if a subsequent owner of an orphan work is identified

In other words let's

• encourage learning and make sure that people can see works of art for free - whether or not they can actually physically visit the place where it is kept
  
• make those seeking to exploit orphan works for commercial use register and pay fees and indemnify the rightful owners from wrongful use rather than placing any onus on the author/artist and
  
• make sure that the economics of any legislation work for all producers and consumers, whether or not they are full-time professionals.

The problem is that I came across another European document (in relation to copyright and the music industry) which suggested enforcement and criminalisation in relation to 'commercial gain' need not involve financial benefit or the exchange of money - it could be defined as just one example of P2P file-sharing. (You'll appreciate that the music industry is completely obsessed with downloads and file-sharing between young people - as opposed to updating its methods of distribution)

Interestingly, the Green Paper was published on the same day that the European Commission announced its proposal proposes to align the copyright term for musical performers with that applicable to authors, in this way bridging the income gap that performers face toward the end of their lives. (The proposal is to extend the term to 95 years from the date of the recording). One might comment (cynically) that such a concession will also benefit the music industry who doubtless lobbied for it.

But who lobbies for the monetary and economic interests of the visual artist?

I'll be looking out for any organised response to this consultation by organisations representing visual artists. At the moment I've had a very difficult time finding any coverage of this in the broadsheets or relevant press. Maybe we need to remember they are also one of the interest groups?

What do you think? Will you be commenting?

Postscript - NOTE TO THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION:
Next time you produce a Green Paper, how about making it one which has embedded URLs which links to digital versions of all the documents that you reference in the Green Paper!!! In an era of e-government I expect these to all be available online.

Links:

• Copyright and Orphan Artworks - Resources for Artists
• Europe's Information Society
  
• European Union: Press Release Intellectual Property: Commission adopts forward-looking package
• European Union: Green Paper COM(2008) 466/3 Copyright in the Knowledge Economy
  

The art of economising - on art materials

Swimming against the tide
8" x 10", coloured pencils on Saunders waterford HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Every morning I glance at the headlines in the paper that I read online. This morning's headline jumped off the screen at me - Economy: 80% fear we are heading for recession - ICM poll. As a result 60% are trying to spend less, with clothes and fuel costs heading the list of cutbacks.

But there was no mention of art materials..........

What does spending less mean for artists?

The one advantage of age is that you accumulate lots of experience to draw on when it comes to a recession. It comes from having survived times when you didn't have so much money and/or you went through a recession.....or two, or three! It's not very nice while it lasts but a bit of ingenuity can go a long way in terms of making life easier.

So what does spending less mean for artists? Below is a checklist of my ideas - do feel free to comment at the end about how you can improve on what I've suggested and/or what your ideas are for making your resources go further.

I bet lots of you are doing some or all of these already. If you've got a tick against most of them I just know you've already thought of extra ways to recycle art materials and/or avoid unnecessary expense - so please comment and share your ideas with the rest of us.

Suppliers

• Customer orientation - Look for suppliers of art materials who are looking to work with artists as they try to make their money stretch further.
• Quality products and premium prices - Don't avoid good quality suppliers - premium pricing can come unstuck in a recession. Look for major discounts on slow moving and/or high priced stock and/or stock which becomes very much subject to discretionary rather than essential spending.
• Availability and premium prices - Having it 'now' costs money. Learn to embrace deferred gratification! Think about whether you can wait or whether you can place orders in good time to avoid any fast delivery premium. Plus art books which have just published don't attract as big a discount from online suppliers compared to those that have been out six months.
• Quantity and discount prices - Buying small quantities costs money. Find out and learn about ways in which you can earn discounts. Embrace co-operative endeavour - see below! :)
• Trade discount In a face to face situation and/or when spending a lot of money ask for a 'trade' discount or a discount for cash.
• Practice discipline - stop 'dropping in' to the art shop even though you don't really need anything and/or buying things on a whim or things you don't really need. Make a mental resolution that you're not allowed to buy any more stock until you've had a good go at using what you've already got.

Media and supports

• Organisation pays! - Tidy up all existing supplies and prepare to be amazed by how much unused stock you have already!
  
• Accessibility helps - Make all your supplies accessible so you can see what you've got and don't end up running to the art store or placing an order - and then spending more than you intended do.
  
• Create revenue - Sell off all stock which you don't like/have hardly used
• Practice economy - Painters - squeeze that tube - or get one of those "nifty tube squeezer thingies"! Coloured pencil artists - try using solvent for base coats - it makes CPs go a lot further.
  
• Be cost-efficient - Think about how you can cut up existing stock efficiently to make stock sized supports
• Recycle - Work out which examples of old work can be reused/painted over to create new work
  

Mats and Frames

• Stock sizes - Stop being so 'freeform' in your creativity and and cut your framing costs by learning how to work to stock sizes
• Recycle - Recycle frames rather than having new ones made. Keep off cuts from mats and find good uses for them - eg as a support for new work
• Learn how to cut - Learn how to cut your own mats. Learn how to cut a sheet of mat board efficiently.....and, it almost goes without saying, measure twice and cut once!
  
• Makeover - Learn how you can 'improve' cheap frames and make them look good
  

Packaging and despatch

• Recycle - Recycle as much packaging as possible. Find ways of making packaging both robust and cost-efficient.
  
• Let your customer save money too! - Give customers the option of choosing how much they pay for despatch - between slower/costs less and faster/costs more
  

Art Books

I love art books and a major part of my art spend budget is on art books. So..........

• Cut transaction time - Stay out of book shops (I ration my visits!)
• Accessibility - Get your art books off the floor and onto shelves so you can see what you've got ( my #1 priority!)
  
• Recycle - Read existing art books again! We know we all spent far too much time looking at the pictures first time round.....
• Never pay full price..... - Check out second-hand book prices on online sites. I'm always absolutely amazed how much cheaper the 'used' option can be when adding in the book modules to my information sites.
  
• ...Only ever pay discounted prices - Use online sites for book ordering - and get that massive discount and use the time saved to make more art!
  
• Free delivery - Use the no delivery charges option
  
• Practice deferred gratification - wait before you place that order! Do you still really want it in a week's time
  
• Create a book fund - Sell the books that bored you and use the revenue to create a fund for buying 'new ones' at 'used' prices
• Read for free - Join a lending library and place your order for that expensive art book you wanted to read
• Access other forms of learning - Use online sites more for learning/finding things out about art
  

Trade-offs and co-operative action

Trade-offs - This is my absolute favourite method of economising. I don't spend less on art if I can help it - I just spend less on everything else!!! But to work properly I have to mentally trade cost items within my budget if I want more art materials and books. Let's put it this way - I don't buy a lot of new clothes any more!

Co-operate / Buy in bulk - Work out ways in which you can create opportunities for trading and co-operative purchasing in bulk. Some local art societies/clubs make arrangements for buying materials in bulk to get much better prices. The trick is to work out what are the sort of things you all use (or could use) and what are the sort of products where discounts can be had for bulk buys. Examples are:

• packs of paper rather than individual sheets
• any product which can be safely decanted into smaller containers
  
• standard cream/ivory mats
• standard mouldings for framing

Trade skills/stock - Other options are to trade skills and/or stock.

• Do swops with other artists you know. What have you got that they want and vice versa
• Trade stock for skills and vice versa. If you know an artist who knows how to do what you can't do (eg cutting mats) then work out a trade which benefits you both.
• Swop art books with people at your art club
• Suggest your art society/club create an art book/video library for temporary loan and/or swops

____________________

As you'll no doubt appreciate there's a bit of recycling and co-operative endeavour flavour to my suggestions - but that's just the way I think! ;)

So - is there anything there that can help you through the threatened recession? Or do you have a really great idea for cutting costs or saving money that you'd like to share?

Please use the comments facility below to continue the The Art of Economising Checklist

Find out about the history of botanical art

1) Iride 2) Viola porporina
Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli - Biblioteca digitale - Dioscurides Neapolitanus

I've always been really interested in the historical aspects of botanical art but I've been finding out more and more about it ever since I visited the new Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew in April and saw, for the very first time, botanical art which had been drawn or painted by the acknowledged experts in this field.

Since then I've been digging around on the internet to find more sites about the history of botanical illustration - and have found that there's quite a lot to look at. As a result I've created a new resource for those interested in learning more about the history of botanical illustration - The History of Botanical Art - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers. It includes:

• landmark publications - such as the important Herbals and Florilegium and drawings made as a result of explorations - such as The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations at the Natural History Museum
• Outstanding botanical artists in history
  
• Collections of historical botanical art
• Online galleries of the history of botanical art
• Exhibitions of botanical art from the past and
• Digital versions of historical books about botanical art

Various artists have earned a reputation for either producing excellent work and/or developing the practice of botanical art through exploration. I've decided to also develop a group of information sites devoted to a number of these artists who have either been of historical significance and/or excellent in relation to the development of botanical art - one is completed and a number of others are in draft.

Completed sites

• Maria Sibylla Merian - see Maria Sibylla Merian - Resources for botanical art lovers

Sites in draft

• Basilius Besler
• Georg Dionysius Ehret
• Sydney Parkinson
  
• Bauer Brothers
• Pierre Redoute
  
• Margaret Mee

To be honest I think I'm beginning to like historical botanical art even better than contemporary botanical art. That's maybe because so much of it has really interesting stories associated with it - but I also really like the stylised drawings in the herbals. I believe Morris, Monet and Mackintosh were all fans of herbals as well - so I think maybe I'm in very good company!

Note about the illustration:
Pedanius Dioscorides (ca. 40-ca. 90) was an ancient Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist, who sought medical substances from all over the Roman and Greek world. He practised in ancient Rome during the time of Nero and is famous for writing a five volume book De Materia Medica. This is one of the most influential herbal books in history, provided a basleine for all modern pharmacopeias and remained in use until about 1600. A number of illustrated manuscripts of the Materia Medica survive, some of them from as early as the 5th through 7th centuries. The most famous of these early copies is the Vienna Dioscurides (512/513). The Illustration is from Codex ex Vindobonensis Graecus 1 in the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli
Wikipedia - Dioscorides

Links:

• The History of Botanical Art - Resources for Botanical Art Lovers
• Kew opens the world's first dedicated botanical art gallery
• Maria Sibylla Merian - at the Getty Museum, Buckingham Palace and Kew Gardens
• Book Review - 1001 Plant and floral illustrations from early herbals
• Book Review: Merian's Antique Botanical Prints
• Book Review: Besler's Book of Flowers and Plants

20th July 2008 - Who made a mark this week?

Many congratulations to Gayle Mason (Fur in the Paint ) who has had work accepted into and shown at the National Exhibition Of Wildlife Art (NEWA) on the Wirral in Cheshire for the second year running.

This is the biggest wildlife art exhibition in the UK outside London and competition to get accepted is getting increasingly fierce. Even well known animal artists are finding it more and more difficult to get in and to get more than one work accepted for display.

The Hunter

copyright Gayle Mason

What is good wildlife art? - Gayle attended the Private View on Thursday. I should have been going as well but for the fact that my travelling/driving is currently very constrained by a seriously dodgy foot/ankle.

However we all have an opportunity to view the works by visiting the exhibition website - which has an excellent online exhibition of all the works in the exhibition - plus Gayle's blog which has a post about the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art - NEWA.

Gayle includes a number of useful tips for animal artists about subject matter, design and impact of the works accepted for this important wildlife art exhibition. Gayle and I both agree that there are an awful lot of birders/twitchers out there are who like looking at paintings and prints of birds as well as birds in their natural habitats!

How to achieve good exhibition sales - Despite the UK's current economic difficulties, it looks like the exhibition is doing really excellent business on the sales front judging by the online exhibition of all the works in the exhibition.

The NEWA website is well organised and has an online purchase system - which I, for one, would like to see on many more art association/society exhibition websites. I just want to underline the point that exhibitions which seem to do best business in terms of sales are all those which also have online websites and online purchasing facilities. This just echoes the very many successful commercial galleries which now have private (ie registration/identity required) websites for viewing images in their exhibitions and auctions.

For all animal artists interested in exhibiting you can find more information about NEWA if you take a look at my blog post last year Gayle Mason exhibiting at the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art.

Art Blogs

• Many Congrats to James Gurney (Hudson Valley, NY), whose blog Gurney Journey was 1 year old on Tuesday - see Atelier Autodidactique. I know a huge number of people read this very popular blog - and they're not all illustrators! As James says it's for illustrators, comic artists, plein-air painters, sketchers, animators, art students, and writers. I find it's always full of really good quality posts, many of which contain valuable tips. By way of a taster here are links to his posts categorised as Paint Techniques and Preliminary Sketches . James is best known as an illustrator and has written and illustrated a few books. ;) However he also does a fair amount of plein air painting and likes painting landscapes - and here he is yesterday Painting High Peak in the Catskills.
  
• Thanks to Casey for the prompt about Bill Sharp's (Bill Sharp's Sketches) post Thoughts on art college and atelier style study
• I loved the Wax Paper I step by step oil painting still life demo on Sadie Jernigan Valeri's blog of the same name
• It's always good to see people taking a break from what they normally do - and summer is a good time to take a break. Carol Marine (Carol Marine's Painting A Day ) who paints still life for most of the year, has been plein air painting and has a number of plein air paintings to look at on her blog. She's back in the studio now so you need to scroll!
  
• Rose Welty (Rose's Art Lines ) has written about the value of breaks on What I Learned on Break. She also commented on Sketching People and the Problems They Create
• Cathy Gatland (A Sketch in Time) has been painting eggs and learning.........
  
• If you have a plein air group, why don't you start a blog for it - like the one run by Portland Plein Air and Studio Painters. It's been going since March and has really taken off in the last couple of months - with lists of paint out opportunities, workshops, demonstrations (eg Elio Camacho Demonstration) and communications about what's happening next Sunday!
• If however you prefer a Virtual Sketch Date - here's the latest July 2008 Virtual Sketch Date - reference.

Artists

• Has Banksy been unmasked at last? The Mail on Sunday had an article last Sunday - which seemed to disappear from view on Monday - only to reappear later - very odd! So if you've always speculated about what he looked like - and if this is him - take a peek at Graffiti artist Banksy unmasked ... as a former public schoolboy from middle-class suburbia. The BBC commented on the news as did the mother of the man alleged to be Banksy - who said she didn't have a son! This was the view of the Guardian Art Blog - So what if Banksy's cover has been blown?

Art Business and Marketing

• Alyson Stanfield (ArtBiz Blog) sent me a couple of interesting posts in her e-mail to all subscribers yesterday. One was an item about 10 Keys to Copy That Sells! by Alexandria Brown. Ali has an award-winning weekly ezine “Highlights on Marketing & Success” with (according to her bio) 28,000 subscribers! Alyson's preface comment to this is I read so many (sorry to say this) BORING emails and newsletters from artists, that I couldn't resist passing this along. Pay close attention. Much is applicable to your copy. The second of Alyson's posts was one about A lesson on using your email list.
• while Seth Godin (Seth's Blog) writes about If you don't want to get email

• Dan at Empty Easel followed up my blog last week about the acquisition of Imagekind by CafePress with CafePress Buys Imagekind: Is This A Win-Win or A Lose-Lose?
• The Imagekind Blog alerted me artist and gallery owner Tim Nyberg who has an interesting take on how liven up the dog days of summer. Fair skin and red hair means he can't joinin with the plein air painters so he's having an indoor Plain Error Festival at his Gallery Forty Two in Juddville, Wisconsin. He describes this as an 'extreme makeover' approach to paintings which have not sold. He paints over the painting and creates a new one - in the gallery. Tim's whole approach to marketing through his gallery website is rather different to what one normally sees - check out his website to see what I mean. Bear in mind he has 30 years of commercial art and design as background experience and will be pretty savvy about how other products get marketed!
  
• Finally, thanks to marketing guru Seth Godin for highlighting this riveting read Viral Marketing Review: Using and Identifying Design Patterns from Ship's Biscuit - which anybody seeking to brand their image and thinking about best to do this might just want to take a peek at...........What do you mean - you're an individual and a creative person not a brand? ;)
  

Art Competition

• According to The Art Newspaper (but not the Tate website) the judges for the Turner Prize have been announced as being Charles Esche, director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven; broadcaster Mariella Frostrup; Jonathan Jones, art critic of The Guardian , and Andrea Schlieker, curator of the Folkestone Triennial. The Turner Prize is a contemporary art award held at Tate Britain that has provoked debate since its inception in 1984. I'm tickled pink that Jonathan is going to be judging as well as commenting this year - I wonder if he'll be as frank about the judging process as Lynn Barber was - see How Lynn Barber suffered for The Turner Prize.

Art exhibitions, fairs and festivals

• An exhibition has just opened at The National Portrait Gallery in London which features Portraits of the 1970s taken by Bern Shwartz. It includes a variety of famous people including artists Henry Moore and David Hockney in their studios in 1977. The exhibition runs until 4th January 2009.
• If you're going to the NPG you might also want to try and catch the exhibition of Eamonn McCabe: Artists and their Studios - 14 photographic portraits of contemporary artists by Eamon McCabe.
• It's just occurred to me that maybe the reason why people visiting the BP Portrait Exhibition like photorealistic portraits is that very many of the visitors to the NPG are people who like (literally) photographic portraits and are coming for the exhibitions of photgraphic portraits. It's a thought!
  
• Tina Mammoser (the Cycling Artist) is exhibiting at Urban Art this weekend, an art fair in Brixton - see What is Urban Art? and has also been accepted into the 1st Annual Cork StreetAnnual Exhibition for Charity - see Flick o' paint: Cork Street exhibition

Art History

• I've been updating my Art History and The History of Art - Resources for Art Lovers site - it now has two new modules for Museums and Art Galleries in Europe and Australasia as well as one for the UK and USA. If you're interested in art history or have a kid who is, check out the resources which are now listed on this site.

Art education, tips and techniques

• On Monday I posted about my workshop on the Anatomy of Trees workshop in Drawing Trees with Sarah Simblet and then explained in some detail how I'd approached the drawing you saw featured on last Sunday's post in Drawing trees in St James Park on my Travels with a Sketchbook blog
• James Gurney (Gurney Journey) posted about a viewfinder Pyramid of Vision and explained what can be seen.

Art Materials

• How often have you scratched your head over a lb/gsm conversion for paper weight? Scratch no longer - here's a link to a paper weight conversion facility! It's now on my Paper and Non Canvas Support - Resources for Artists site.
  
• I learned this week that Michallet is the name given to the heavy version of the Arches Ingres Paper used by Seurat for his wonderful tonal drawings. I also discovered that you can get a modern version of it at New York CentralArt Supply. Here's the link to Arches MBM Ingres Michallet

The Art of Politics

• There's been a massive surge in online (and offline) comments about the New Yorker cover featuring Obama and his wife. The link is to a collection of political New Yorker covers - which starts with the one which generated the comment. Here's the Guardian's Steve Bell's take on it all Can cartoonists go too far? Yes. Should we go too far? Yes
• For another take on the Obama story so far - see The CafePress perspective on who's going to win the American Election - but make sure you read the comments too - and my note which says this is NOT political comment. I live in London folks - I don't get a vote in any election in the USA! What I found interesting was trying to work out what sort of figure 20% of CafePress earnings would be and whether CafePress has any plans to continue with features telling us all about the nature of buying trends on their site! (I asked them and the short answer is 'no'.)
  

Colour - and The Colour Project

Here's my posts from this week's contribution to The Colour Project. Even with the big push this week, there's no way I'm going to finish this project by the end of July! Maybe end of August - if I get busy - maybe?

• Complementary Colours and mixing neutral colours - my colour chart for 12 basic colours is on the right
  
• Analogous Colours
• Local Colour and Realism
• Colour Schemes: Split Complementaries, Triads and Tetrads

Plus here are some sites and blog posts which I found related to colour

• I found a neat site - the Color Selector Site which gives you the code for website colours - you select the colour for background, foreground, text, links etc and it delivers the code for CSS, html and hexadecimal colours.
• James Gurney posted about the colour of reflected light in Croquet Balls
• Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) had a post about COLOURLovers website which is a is a resource that monitors and influences color trends based on an open source and common license concept plus its associated COLOURLovers Blog. 30% of all profit from COLOURlovers goes to HOW, to support disaster relief projects and the volunteers.
• Moira McLaughlin (Dog Art Today ) has a post highlighting the vibrant colour used by Andy Warhol in Andy Warhol's Ginger (Update: apologies to Moira for getting the spelling of her name wrong on initial publication)
  

Don't forget to let me know if you've been blogging about colour - and I'll link to the good posts in my round-up at the end of this month.

Copyright and Orphan Works

• I came across the Copyright Advisory Network website (for librarians copyright scholars and policy wonks to learn about copyright and seek and provide feedback). This provides a really neat tool for providing an indicaiton of where or not copyright permission is required - check out the Digital Copyright Slider. You just move the slider at the right and it automatically provides an indication of what sort of copyright issues you're dealing with. Note the disclaimers in the copyright notice plus the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike Licence - and that goes for me to!
• I'm adding both the above links to my Copyright and Orphan Artworks - Resources for Artists site. You can 'Bookmark and Share' this site using the facilities at the bottom of the entries in its right hand column. Rating the site is good too! ;)
  
• The list of Groups Opposing the Orphan Works Bills as Written is now very, very long - but is your group listed? For those who have still to send a letter try this page which makes it very easy to tailor a letter to your particular circumstances.
• Tomorrow I'll be publishing a post about the publication last week of a green paper about the knowledge economy by the European Commission. Yes folks - we've got something to study over this side of the pond as well!

Websites and blogging

• Wordpress has a new theme directory
  
• Darren Rowse's Problogger Newsletter seems to be well and truly underway again. Here are four tips from Problogger
• When Should You Add a Newsletter to Your Blog?
• 21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky
• The Comprehensive Paint-by-numbers Guide to Writing and Publishing Your Ebook
• .....and The Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge Method, Or, Blogging Is Flirting
• Tina Mammoser's MacBook stopped this week The Nugget crashes - and she'd just like to remind you all to do your back-ups in case this happens to you too!
  

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

Just a reminder that I'm very happy to take a look at a blog if you think you've been blogging about something which may be of interest to others and worth sharing.

Here are a few pointers:

• I like, on the whole, to recommend people go look at the blogs of people who have been blogging for some time (in other words please don't ask me for a mention as a way for your brand new blog getting links!)
• I often give a mention to a well known artist if they have recently started a new blog. This is mainly because I know others would want to know they now have a blog. I'm also very happy to receive tip offs about new blogs by well known artists - where 'well known' is something I can validate using the Internet.
  
• For the rest of us less well known artists, I look for frequency and consistency in the quality of your blogging, and in particular........
  
• I look for people who have original content and/or present a new angle on art, art materials, blogging, marketing their art - any of the topics which come up regularly on this blog. (I confess! To be very honest - it's very difficult to choose between posts which do NOT find a new angle on 'same old, same old' and much more interesting to read about your views)
• I very much like blogs by people who are on a learning endeavour. This is often about sharing the experience of being a continual student rather than about displaying great art. It's sharing that might encourage others to learn new skills, find new materials, try new things and develop their art - rather than continuing with the (guess!) 'same old, same old'. It's also the people who don't mind sharing their mistakes! ;)
  
• The rest is all the things that interest me and catch my eye as I'm surfing (a technical term for virtual travelling which is the only kind I'm experiencing right now while confined to home with the wreckage created by the connective tissue in my right foot plus a triangular foot support. OK I've whined about this twice now and will now stop!)
  

I'm also very happy to have my attention drawn to interesting posts which you may have found on other sites. I don't mention all that get mentioned to me - but that's mainly because this blog reflects my interests rather than your interests. However on the basis that my readers probably share some of my interests I'm always willing to take a look at anything you recommend - but I don't reply to spammers. Nice people write first and ask if they can send me something related to their own sites!